


Shortaki Week 2020

by Polkahotness



Category: Hey Arnold!
Genre: Multi, Shortaki Week, Shortaki Week 2020, shortaki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25533850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polkahotness/pseuds/Polkahotness
Summary: It's that time again!! 8 days, 8 prompts, 8 little stories to get that Shortaki juice PUMPING and the fluff is PLENTIFUL this time around! Join me in celebrating the couple of the century, of the universe, of the world, our one true OTP-- Arnold Shortman and Helga G. Pataki.**Rated T because sometimes I like to swear
Relationships: Helga Pataki & Arnold Shortman, Helga Pataki/Arnold Shortman
Comments: 11
Kudos: 28





	1. Long Gone

**SHORTAKI WEEK, DAY 1**

_**Long Gone** _

* * *

Sometimes when I look at Helga, it's difficult to remember what it was like before we admitted our feelings for each other. Granted, Helga had admitted her feelings to me countless times and on numerous different occasions, but I had never been all that great at that sort of thing in response.

I supposed that my 'love language' just wasn't the same as hers and it made navigating through our relationship a tumultuous and difficult process at times.

Helga had always been so good with words—her feelings, though oftentimes hidden deep inside, were always so well-articulated. When she wanted to give up the truth behind them, her sentences were thoughtful; poetic, and they came out of her mouth with ease, despite inwardly struggling with that piece of vulnerability.

But me?

It seemed that I still hadn't quite figured out how to best voice my feelings.

It wasn't that I had a problem voicing them—I had no issue whatsoever telling Helga, Gerald, my next-door neighbor, or the entire world how I felt about her. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that I couldn't do it _well_. My attempts were often clumsy, and I had the tendency to ramble and stumble over each word like I was once again learning how to speak for the first time in my life.

Thankfully, Helga never held it against me. In fact, her response to my feeble attempts usually sounded something like, "Still struggling with that word thing, are we, footballhead?" Then she'd let out this soft little laugh while I blushed and would open my mouth to try and dispute her, though she never let me get that far. "I get it, babe. You love me. And I love you—" then she'd pause and smack my butt while following it up with, "— _and_ that cute little ass of yours."

A lifetime of confusing feelings had changed a lot in the dynamic between Helga and myself—the last six of those years cementing our relationship in a way that 10-year-old-me could have never imagined.

We were the couple people oogled over. Our stories of the bully and the victim turning into lovers was one for the ages, and we never grew tired of talking about it or reminiscing over the foolish children we once were. While anyone with eyes could see the love that we held for one another, it was always Helga who seemed to vocalize it best. As the self-appointed designated speaker, she was usually the one who told our complicated love story as I draped my arm over her shoulders to hold her into me wherever it was that we sat.

Helga had figured out in our time together that I was the shower, and not the teller. My love for her looked like me making dinner when I knew she had a hard day at work and would be too tired to even heat up a tv dinner. It looked like me rubbing her feet while she lay unsuspecting on the couch with her legs on my lap as we binge-watched another series. My love was shown through buying her that book she'd been talking about for three weeks because it was the long-awaited follow-up to her favorite author's poetry book—and I'd even gotten the limited edition copy with the ornately designed cover and gold-lined pages because, while she'd never say it, I knew she preferred the special copy over the boring (and cheaper) paperback version.

It was all of those little things and more that told Helga how much I loved her. But all of those little things could never express what I needed to tell her next. The emotions and feelings I had to say this time around would require me to put my strengths of showing and my weaknesses of telling together so I could be bolder than I'd ever been before.

Because there was nothing in the world that I wouldn't do for her.

It may have taken us a while to realize just _how_ deeply our love for one another went. Even after we'd admitted our feelings, we struggled to get to a place where we mutually realized we were each other's end game. I'm sure Helga already knew this fact because she seemed to have _always_ known, even when we were children, but me? It had taken me much longer.

With Helga, I was always just a few steps behind.

But it was okay.

Helga always managed to wait patiently…always somehow _knowing_ that I was making my way to her.

Throughout our years of syncopated dating habits, a funny thing happened that I could never push away. Helga _never_ left my mind. No matter where I was or what I was doing with who, Helga _always_ remained. It may have taken until we both hit 21 for the stars to officially align, but that night six years ago when we reconnected on our favorite bar's balcony that overlooked the bright lights of Hillwood… _that_ night forever changed my life.

I could only hope it would provide that same luck tonight as we stood together, once again, on the bar's balcony while looking out at our hometown on a quiet autumn evening.

"You know, Arnoldo," Helga said after taking a swig from the bottle she was holding, "I was kind of surprised you wanted to come to this joint on our anniversary of all days."

Smirking at her statement, I shrugged my shoulders. "The balcony here is nice. I like looking out at the city, don't you?"

"Well, sure," she replied while focusing her attention out on the dotted lights of the faraway buildings that made up the skyline. "But we could have easily done it from somewhere less…" Twisting her body, she glanced behind herself towards the hubbub of noise from within the bar. Turning back around, she returned her gaze outward while finishing her sentiment. "I don't know, somewhere less… _cheesy_."

"Cheesy?" I intoned while eyeing her carefully. "What do you mean by that?"

"You know," she simply said while fixating her eyes ahead without so much as a flinch in my direction. "Taking me to the same place where we first 'officially' rekindled our relationship. I guess I would have thought you'd pick some fancy-pants restaurant to propose to me at."

My jaw instinctively dropped as I stared at Helga with my mouth agape.

Slowly she turned her head to look at me with a wicked grin. "I like the sentimentality part though," she offered as some kind of consolation prize. "But if you _were_ to take us back somewhere and be all romantic by talking about the past, I would have chosen P.S 118 or something. Now _that's_ a good throwback."

I was still in shock as she spoke; my mind not comprehending that Helga had so easily figured out my plans and then called me out on them without so much as a care in the world.

It seemed that, yet again, Helga was still one step ahead of me.

"But you… how did you… but," I shook my head while struggling to force out a somewhat-coherent response. "Didn't you, how could you have—"

"Arnold," she deadpanned, though a hint of a smile twitched at the corner of her lips, "You were at Gerald's for _four hours_ the other day. You really think I didn't hear about your little 'plans' from Phoebe?"

" _Phoebe_ told you?" I repeated in shock. "Phoebe. She's smarter than that, Helga. Why on _earth_ would she think it was okay to tell you something this important?!" I exclaimed and Helga remained unphased; merely tilting her head in thought before looking away from me again.

Casually, she explained, "I never said she thought it was _okay_. I mean, criminy, I practically had to _force_ it out of her."

"And you did that because…?"

Helga let out a chuckle before fully turning her entire body to face me directly. "I've been waiting for you to propose to me for _years_ now, Arnold. Years." I could feel heat beginning to rise and fill in my cheeks. "Honestly, I was about ready to propose to _you_ , and then Phoebe kept telling me that I couldn't do that because our anniversary was coming up so then I told her that it was the _perfect_ time to propose, then one thing led to another and—"

"She didn't actually _tell_ you, then, did she." I finished for her in a statement rather than a question, and Helga let out a heavy sigh.

"She didn't _have_ to tell me," Helga said with a twinge of humor beneath her tone. "By the way she acted, I knew _immediately_ what you were up to."

Silence settled between us and I fought the urge to explode in anger, frustration, and sheer disappointment. How was it that I was _still_ so incapable of surprising Helga? How was it that even after all of this time, I was _still_ that dense little boy unable to catch up to Helga and be the first to admit something for once.

How was it that I was somehow perpetually in the fourth grade, avoiding acting on my feelings?

Impulsively, I grabbed Helga's hand and began pulling her towards the inside of the bar, "C'mon," I told her as she followed along with an inquisitive set of eyes. "We're going somewhere."

"Where?" She scoffed out. "I thought you were going to ask me to marry you…"

"Oh, I am," I answered immediately and in a firm tone. "But I'm _not_ doing it here."

"Ahh, a field trip, I see," Helga replied as we dodged and weaved our way through the drunken crowd of dancers cluttering the small bar. "And just where is it you have decided to take me for this romantic gesture?"

"Somewhere you _won't_ be expecting this time," I told her with about 86% certainty. "At least… I hope."

As she set her half-empty bottle on a table that we passed by in pursuit of the door out, we finally exited the bar and began making our way down the sidewalk. I led us forward with determination while Helga trailed along in my wake; her longer legs allowing her to keep at my pace with ease.

"Seriously, what are you up to, Hair Boy?" Her tone was becoming almost nervous, and it only heightened my confidence that this new destination was where I should have brought her in the first place. It was a deep-seeded memory that we hadn't discussed since we were teenagers. This had to be the perfect place for a proposal.

This had to be it.

Continuing to drag her along, Helga's eyes shifted to take in her surroundings. Her brows furrowed as she tried to piece together the strange environment that I was leading her through—an old part of Hillwood that had been long forgotten. Most everything on each block had either been abandoned or demolished; the promises of new complexes and mini-malls now only graffitied rubble lost to the recent economic recession.

"Do you even know where we are?" Helga continued to try and coax my true purpose out of me. "You _do_ realize that if we're lost, I am _not_ paying for the taxi back."

It was a backhanded joke that signaled Helga was out of her element. I knew her tactics by now and she was currently baffled as to what was in store. The fact that I was going to propose tonight was already out in the open and there was no pretending it wasn't still going to happen. The _way_ it was going to happen, however… now _that_ was going to be vastly different.

I just hoped I was going to be able to pull it off. I didn't exactly have the greatest track record with speaking my feelings on the fly, but maybe that was for the best. In fact, by doing this completely unrehearsed, Helga would know that my words—as jumbled and clunky as they may come out—would be directly from the heart, _my_ heart. Unrehearsed. Unpolished. Unfiltered.

Pulling Helga to a stop as we reached the corner of an unassuming block hidden in the outskirts of Hillwood, the two of us stood in place in front of a small building. Inside the window was a faded, 'For Lease' sign, and the cement that made up the foundation was filled with cracks that had allowed wild weeds to spurt from the ground and wiggle their way up towards the sky. At first glance, the building was old and decrepit—absolutely nothing special and certainly not somewhere worthy of a marriage proposal.

Glancing around at where I'd brought her, Helga eyed the building carefully before slowly turning to face me. "An abandoned building? What's so special about this place? There's nothing here."

"Exactly," I answered as Helga's brow raised in curiosity. "There isn't anything here. Not now, anyway." Looking over my shoulder, I gestured towards the dilapidated structure before continuing my thought. "It's been a lot of different things in the past, though."

"Oh really?" Helga humored me while letting go of my hand to cross her arms loosely over her chest. "Like what?"

"A clothing boutique. A tailoring company. I'm pretty sure there was a craft store in here too at one point—"

"What in the hell does any of that have to do with—" Helga interrupted, though I didn't allow her to keep talking.

Instead, I finished my sentence by asserting dominance and talking over her as she unsuccessfully tried to speak over me. "—but before all of that, this was a daycare."

Helga's eyes widened minimally, though she remained silent as if to give me the chance to continue.

And that's exactly what I did.

"Not so much a daycare as it was a pre-school, though."

More silence settled between us as Helga's eyes drifted from mine to look at the run-down building she hadn't recognized. "Urban Tots," she muttered out as though it were an afterthought rather than a declaration of acknowledgement.

At her fixation towards our old pre-school, I took the opportunity to shakily get down on one knee; my hand fumbling to reach the small box I'd been hiding inside the pocket of the jeans I was wearing. Pulling it out, Helga's eyes returned to me; water gathering at the base of her vision as she looked down at me with laser-focus.

"Helga," I began precariously, though I tried to keep myself calm as I turned the blue-velvet box over and over in my hands anxiously. "As you've proven tonight, you _are_ and always _have_ _been_ one step ahead of me. Since the moment we met, something in you had the wherewithal to know that we weren't just classmates in some random neighborhood in a random city in this random universe we find ourselves living in. Something inside of you _knew_ that we were more than that. It knew… _you_ knew that we were so much more, that we were… that we _are_ , soulmates."

"Arnold," Helga breathed out, but I held up a finger to stop her from saying anything else and throwing me off of my groove.

"Do you remember when we were fifteen?" I started and Helga smirked while staring at me incredulously. "You told me that you had loved me from the moment you first saw me which, to be fair, wasn't the _first_ time you'd told me that, but I asked you when that was, when you had first seen me."

A small laugh escaped Helga as she recalled the moment I was referencing. "You'd never asked me that before. It was a stupid question."

"Not really," I countered while adjusting from where I knelt on the pavement; my knee suddenly telling me that I'd chosen the wrong time to begin kneeling. Unfortunately, it was _definitely_ too late now to get back up, so I instead took a deep breath to calm my angry kneecap and proceeded with my story. "It's funny because the memories that _I_ have of you and things you've done or random conversations and moments we've shared… they're different than your memories."

"How do you figure?" Helga pressed and I knitted my brows together while trying to find the most effective way to explain my thoughts.

"You have a whole other set of memories that I don't remember because, at the time, they didn't mean anything to me yet. Just like some of my memories don't align with yours because they weren't as significant to _you_ as they were to _me_ in that moment." I took in a sharp breath before finalizing, "A lot of your memories are different because you've known about us a lot longer than _I_ ever did."

"Long before there even _was_ an us, you dingus," Helga chuckled out, and I rolled my eyes at her comment.

" _Anyway_ ," I emphasized before pressing onward. "You told me all about that day, that day back at Urban Tots when we apparently first met—a memory I had never actively remembered but suddenly did as you told your side of the story. It was one of the first times you broke down that wall, completely _destroyed_ it to bare your soul to me without insults or nicknames or jokes to cover up the raw truth. You told me about what happened before you got to the pre-school, about Olga and your parents and the rain and your lunch and-and…"

I had to stop myself because the rambling had begun to rear its ugly head. Taking a moment to collect myself, I inhaled deeply before re-routing my conversational direction so I could get back on track with the task at hand.

"I never forgot that story," I admitted while looking down at the ring box I was still playing with in my grip. "You went back to the casual bullying and nicknames, both of us knowing how we felt about each other, but I never forgot that story. Each night I'd lay in my bed staring up through the skylight at the stars and imagine that memory I'd forgotten over and over again. Your pink overalls covered in mud. That sad look in your eye. It was like you'd never been loved… like you didn't know what it _meant_ to be loved or to love another person."

Helga chewed on her lip for a moment as though trying to find the right thing to say—something she didn't typically struggle with. After a moment, she settled on, "What's your point. Aren't proposals supposed to be romantic or something? Not some… _excuse_ to go drudging up my messed-up past and all of the memories that I've worked really hard to forget—"

"I know, I know," I tried to subdue her before she could indulge any further in the anger that was rapidly bubbling up inside of her. "What I _am_ saying, is that the little girl who stood _right here_ all of those years ago… that unloved toddler is gone now, Helga. She's _long gone_ , okay?"

Her deep azure gaze bore into me as I kept talking; my knee now completely numbed from any pain or feeling as my body began to follow suit from nervousness alone. "The woman who stands before me isstill the same feisty, stubborn, thoughtful, smart, talented… and _amazing_ person she has _always_ been, but unloved?" I shook my head a couple of times. "That girl from long ago and the woman of now and forevermore is _not_ unloved. She never will be or feel unloved, ever again. And that's something that I can and do promise you."

With that, I at last presented the box and carefully opened it to reveal a golden engagement ring with an opal at its center. Surrounding the stone was a halo of small diamonds; the ring itself appearing as the most dazzling of flowers attached to a plain gold band. The ring sparkled effortlessly under the glow of the moonlight, though the sky threatened its romantic lighting with oncoming and fast-moving storm clouds.

As Helga's eyes went back and forth between the ring and myself, I kept talking; the next set of words something I had always planned to say no matter where I ended up proposing. "Helga G. Pataki, you have been my bully for as long as I can remember. You teased me relentlessly and never stopped giving me attention, no matter how much I thought I didn't want it. You confessed to me time after time that you loved me and yet, even after all of this time, _I've_ never confessed how _I_ feel to you—at least, not entirely. So, I guess… well… here goes."

Nodding her head for me to keep going, she pressed her lips together in a tight line as though trying to hold back the tears I could see pooling in her eyes.

"I love you. I'm head over heels, wildly, desperately, _endlessly_ in love with you, Helga," my words were earnest; genuine. Each sentence I said with the utmost care and sincerity. "I don't just want to have you in my life, I _need_ you in my life. I need your nicknames, your teasing, your each and every thought, your embrace… your _everything_ because you _are_ my everything. And this ring—" I took it out of its box and held out the specifically-chosen engagement ring for her approval, "—I chose it for a reason."

"The opal," I said while using my other hand to point to the main stone, "it's iridescent. It looks like one color, but it never really ever stays that way. It changes and evolves and looks different under whatever light is shining on it—and yet it always somehow stays the same. And that's us. That's our love. We've _always_ loved each other. It may have looked different as we grew, but it's _always_ been there. And if you marry me… I promise that it will always _continue_ to be there."

Swallowing hard, Helga let out a tidbit of her own, "I thought opals had to do with love and passion," she paused for a moment before adding, "and desire. Seduction. Are you trying to get in my pants, Shortman?"

"Always," I admitted which made Helga giggle; a few stray tears jiggling loose from her laughter. "But yes, those are the other reasons why I picked it. Every time you look down at this stone, you will know that I _love_ you. That I _desire_ you and to be with you. That I want you _passionately_ in every meaning and interpretation of the word. That I will be faithful, and loyal until my very last breath. With this ring… I promise that you will never, ever, _ever_ spend another second of your life being a muddy little girl who doesn't know what love is. I will spend every moment of my life proving to you and showing you and making up for all of those times when you needed love and didn't have it."

The two of us stared at each other as I held the ring out towards her, my arm growing more tired with each second that passed. Our eyes remained locked on one another as eons, and decades, and lifetimes seemed to happen while I agonized over her answer. _Why wasn't she saying yes? I'd shown her the ring… she knew what I was doing… so why hadn't she accepted yet? Was she not_ going _to accept?_ Worry fluttered through my mind as a sudden thought filled my senses, _What if she doesn't_ want _to get married?_

As I lost myself in my thoughts, the clearing of Helga's throat brought me back to reality; her eyes no longer wet with tears and instead looking down at me skeptically. "Hey Arnold?" She asked me and I blinked my eyes a couple of times to refocus my attention on the current moment. "I'd love to say 'yes' here and put on this super sexy and seductive ring you've so thoughtfully picked out for me—"

"Well, my mom helped…"

"Of course Stella did," Helga affirmed with a smirk before sucking in a deep breath of air. "But the whole point of a marriage proposal, as nice as your words were and all… well, you kind of left out one very, _very_ important part."

"…huh?" was all I could manage as I stared up at her in horror.

A sly smile spread across Helga's face. "You haven't actually _asked_ me anything yet."

"Oh god," I mumbled while shutting my eyes in utter embarrassment. "Oh, god, I just… I got so caught up in all of this and then I kneeled _way_ too early—"

"I know!" Helga exclaimed in amusement. "Your knee must be _killing_ you right now."

"Eh," I quickly dismissed, "I stopped having feeling in my kneecap about a minute in so you might need to help me up—"

"Because you're an old man, now. Yeah, I know," Helga teased before sighing and tilting her head slightly. "You're only getting older the longer you wait, Footballhead."

"Yeah. Yes, of course. Right. Okay," pushing through the numbness of my knee and the nervousness I still felt for no reason at all, I held the ring out once again and looked deep into Helga's ocean blue eyes. "Helga G. Pataki. Will you marry me?"

Her smile widened to reveal a toothy grin. "Criminy, Arnold. I thought you'd never ask."

As I slipped the ring onto its new home of Helga's finger, she helped to yank me up from where I'd potentially done permanent damage to my left knee.

I didn't even care.

From where the two of us kissed under the moonlight at what remained of Urban Tots Pre-School, I knew that the Helga and Arnold who had once occupied this exact spot years ago were long gone. And as the sky at last opened up, allowing buckets of rain to downpour on us, we laughed while getting soaked to the bone because this time, the rain itself didn't matter.

The only umbrella Helga needed was one made entirely of love. And, just like when we were mere toddlers, I was happy to provide it for her. Not only in the rain, but through every storm we may weather and every warm day that is enjoyed safely under the shade.

For Helga, I was prepared to hold that umbrella over her for the rest of our lives.

And I couldn't wait.


	2. Flinch

**SHORTAKI WEEK, DAY 2**

_**Flinch** _

* * *

I'd never seen anybody go so hard on Arnold. And that's coming from someone who has literally bullied him since the dawn of time.

It all started when we decided to take the bus out of town to visit this record store that Arnold was _dying_ to visit. It was new and located a couple of towns over—'The Record Skip.' It was a dumb name in my opinion and considering the size of the town it was located in, I didn't exactly anticipate business to be _booming_ enough that it would stay open for much longer.

Thus, initiated our fun little trip.

Arnold was _determined_ to get this one particular jazz album that he'd been hunting for online and at every thrift shop, music store, _anywhere_ that you could possibly imagine. Personally, I thought it seemed like a lot of unnecessary work for a giant disc that was way larger than it needed to be when there are CDs or, dare I say it, streaming services that could play you the same music without lugging around ten pounds worth of equipment to do so.

But to Arnold, the records were just his… _thing_. Rhonda would call it an 'aesthetic' but in reality, he was just a big jazz nerd who liked the way that a record, "made the sounds of each instrument pop." He claimed that when listening to an old record on his fancy phonograph or whatever you call it, was like "being in the room of a jazz concert. You can feel the energy even if it was recorded years, _decades_ ago."

Naturally, I laughed in his face, but I respect his love for the way the music feels and sounds. I remember when we first started dating our sophomore year, we would spend _hours_ in his room with the lights down low as he played various vinyls while explaining the greats to me and the reasons why jazz music was his happy place.

Sometimes I think it's because it helps him stay close to his grandparents who, unfortunately, aren't around any longer to influence his eclectic tastes. Both Stella and Miles seem to understand why this mission of finding some specific LP was important, but me, his 17-year-old girlfriend who much preferred the music app on her phone, well I just couldn't quite wrap my head around the significance.

"So, how did you find this shop anyway?" I asked him as we jostled on the bus down the road towards the town I'd never heard of. "This city is like… _the_ smallest dot on a map I've ever heard of."

"It isn't _that_ small of a town, Helga," Arnold insisted before offering a small shrug of his shoulders. "I stopped here once one the way back from visiting Arnie a few years ago," he explained, and I rolled my eyes at the mention of his zany cousin.

"Right. _Arnie_. Talk about someone living in po-dunk _nowhere_ ," I commented, though Arnold didn't seem to react.

His attention was focused outside the glass of the window as he watched our bus slowly travel its way into the town Arnold was eager to visit. Once the sign for the town passed us by, I could feel Arnold's grip of my hand tighten slightly and I couldn't help but smile at the involuntary action.

He was excited.

That made _me_ excited.

Even if it was just for some dumb record.

When the bus lurched forward at its stop, both Arnold and I stood up as he began rushing off down the aisle. He could hardly contain his excitement for the possibility of finding whatever long-awaited album he'd been searching for.

Me?

I was just interested in seeing what this album _was_ in the first place.

Up until now, he had refused to tell me—said it was stupid and that I would laugh at him. While he wasn't exactly wrong because the chances of me laughing were pretty high, it didn't mean that I didn't care. I wanted him to be happy even if it was because of something that I found weird and dumb. My opinion didn't matter. This was _his thing_ and as the loving, perfect, gorgeous, and incredibly supportive girlfriend that I had had the honor of being for nearly two years now, I was prepared to follow that footballhead into the depths of hell if it meant he'd wear that dopey grin of his for even one minute.

'The Record Skip' wasn't too far down the road from where our bus had stopped, and Arnold practically skipped his way down the sidewalk towards the small building with a giant record hanging above the door that read the name of the shop. It didn't seem all that busy and my suspicions were correct when we entered the store to find a lone cashier who looked bored to tears and a single customer perusing the endless rows of albums.

As my eyes scanned the bins filled to the brim with records of all varieties and in no particular order, I watched Arnold begin to sort through them feverishly. Wanting to help, I stood beside him and looked over his shoulder while quietly saying, "You know Hair Boy, if you told me what you were looking for, I might be able to help you find it."

"No thanks," Arnold replied automatically as a frown grew on my face. "If it's here, I want to be the one to find it. If that makes any sense."

Pulling away from peeking over his shoulder, I chuckled to myself with a lone shake of my head. "It _doesn't_ , you know," I told him with amusement. "Make any sense, that is. I mean, look around!" I exclaimed while gesturing at the small store we had found ourselves in. "There must be _hundreds_ of records in here and without my help, we could be here until closing time. And from the looks of 'Moody McGee' over there—" I pointed to the cashier tapping away on her phone without a care in the world, "—I just don't think they'd be all that stoked at such a proposition."

My words gave Arnold food for thought as he paused in his sifting through the records to consider my observation. He knew that I had a point and after a moment of silent contemplation, Arnold breathed a heavy sigh of defeat. "Fine," he said softly before twisting minimally to look over in my direction with a stern expression painted on his features. "But if I tell you, you have to promise not to laugh, okay?"

Once again rolling my eyes at his inane paranoia, I agreed to his terms and conditions. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, _fine,_ Arnoldo. Now what is it that we're looking for, huh?"

Arnold took a heavy breath as if to prepare himself for some big dark secret he'd been harboring. The dramatics of his lead-up to the important and somehow embarrassing tidbit threw me off once it was finally off his chest. "It's this Dino Spumoni record. It's… It's really, _really_ rare because it was a live recording from one of his shows when he was still singing with Martin and Lewis in the Lounge."

I stared at him with my mouth ajar as though in shock, which I quickly wiped off and swapped the expression for a skeptical glare instead. "That's it? _That's_ the big mysterious record you've been hunting for? Dino Spu _moni_?" I soon rolled my eyes while letting out a scoff. "Cripes, Arnold! Didn't your grandparents own basically every single one of his stinkin' albums? I'll bet it's up in some closet somewhere in a box, all dusty and—"

"Well, it's _not,_ Helga," he interrupted me, and my mouth instinctively zipped itself shut at the sudden ferocity in Arnold's tone. When his wave of agitation passed, he soon apologized and explained. "I'm sorry, it's just…" He opened his mouth to let words pass through his lips, though only air escaped. As he scrunched his brows inward, he seemingly tried to conjure just what it was he had hoped to already have said and been done with.

"It's just… _what,_ Arnold?" I pushed gently and Arnold sighed before turning back towards the rows of records he began sifting through once again.

Quietly, he resumed speaking. "When Grandma died… Grandpa didn't take it too well." He glanced over his shoulder at me before returning his attention to the records he thumbed through, while muttering, "You remember that."

"Sure," I answered while walking away from him to walk around the end of the row and to the side directly opposite of Arnold. My hope was that from where I stood across the way, I could secretly peek over at him while pretending to look through records. "That was freshman year, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was," Arnold confirmed while holding an album up and turning it around to scan over the song listings before replacing it back to the slot he'd found it in. "Grandpa died our sophomore year."

"I remember," which I had—very vividly, in fact. It had been a really tough beginning of high school for the poor kid, and as much as I hated to admit it, their deaths were a large part of what brought the two of us even closer together. I hadn't been able to help myself from checking in on him and stopping by randomly to see how he was doing. Soon I was staying for dinner and helping move belongings and sorting through boxes.

It wasn't long after that Arnold and I began officially dating.

I always imagined how his Grandpa would have teased us; his grandma continuing to call me 'Eleanor' and maybe giving Arnold a new title of his own as an upgrade of sorts. It never had felt the same since they'd passed, but so was the nature of life—and Phil and Gertie had lived a couple of pretty amazing ones.

"Right when we first started sorting through things," Arnold continued on; effectively dragging me out of my thoughts and back to the conversation we were currently having. "I found this old Dino Spumoni record—one that I hadn't seen or listened to before. It was shoved all the way in the corner of my grandparent's closet, and we were all baffled as to why it had been hiding back there."

"So, naturally, we pulled it out and I began looking over the cover—memorizing it to the smallest wrinkle and shallowest scratch," he laughed at this as though ashamed of openly telling another person about what he'd done. "And one day, as I was pulling out the record to play it, it sort of… got _caught_ on something? I yanked at it to try and wiggle it out of the slot, but when it got free, it slipped from my fingers and—"

"It shattered, didn't it?" I answered for him as he nodded slowly.

"Smashed," Arnold uttered with a shake of his head and a humorless smirk. "Just like the name of his song."

"And _that's_ why we're on this hunt? To replace the record that you accidently broke?" I shrugged my shoulders while moving to the next column of miscellaneous albums. "I mean, I _get_ it. It was your grandparents, but by replacing it, you're just honoring some _other_ random person's copy, you know?"

"That's true," he agreed, though his tone suggested otherwise. "It isn't all about the record itself, though. After it fell and broken and I had been angry for a significant amount of time, I picked up the slipcover of the album and looked over it like I had before—memorizing every indentation and faded color that made the cover art. But this time, I ventured to look _inside_ the slot to where the record used to lie."

A long pause followed as Arnold probably waited for me to beg for more. I was happy to oblige because I really _was_ curious now. " _And_?" I pressed him.

Arnold shifted over to his next column of records and flipped with ease while glancing at each album that he passed. "There was a _note_ shoved in the back corner. That's what the record had gotten stuck on. And since it hadn't been touched in who _knows_ how long…" his voice trailed off as though verbally giving me a blank to fill in for him.

"It's no wonder you hadn't found it before," I finalized as he went on to tell me more about the note without my prompting.

"The note was a letter. It was dated from the _50s_ and it was addressed to my Grandma… from Grandpa… after their very first date."

My mind tried to imagine Gertie as a young woman and Phil as some young man; the two of them no different than Arnold and myself, but for a few years. I shook off the vision I couldn't make and said, "Well, are you going to tell me what it said, or what?"

Ignoring my sarcasm, Arnold recalled the letter as though he had recited it countless times before. "Gertie—I had a swell time with you at the lounge, tonight. Here's a cut from that performance, courtesy of Dino himself. Maybe on our next date I'll take you to meet him, as long as you don't go running off with him. He'd better not touch _my_ gal." The both of us laughed as he ended the letter and offered a shrug. "Then he just signed it, 'yours, Phil.'"

"Your grandparents really were something," I noted while sorting through my pile; Arnold moving from the row he was in to the next one over and started going through more albums. Just beside him, the only other customer in the entire store also carefully inspected record after record—also a man on a mission.

It was clear that finding this record wasn't because he missed the music or wanted it for some kind of collection he had. Arnold was looking for this record because it was made from the _very night_ in which his grandparents had shared their very first date. Unlike some of the zany stories told by both Phil and Gertie respectively about such a date, that letter had given Arnold tangible _proof_ of their love story.

Finding that record meant completing the album Arnold had probably stashed away beside his bed so he could look at it the way he used to look at that old picture of his parents. Not like I _knew_ that or anything. I didn't watch him from the skylight sometimes when it was really dark out because there was a new moon and he was distracted which meant I could hide in the shadows of the rooftop above him.

But that was beside the point.

I _had_ to find that album. I wanted to give that back to Arnold—return to my beloved that which was lost with two of the most important people in his life. My sweet, poor, footballheaded darling. How I longed to take away the pain clouding his heart. How I desired to wave a magic wand and turn back time so he could reunite with his grandparents once again. If only I could find that album. If only I could be the hero and bring to him the one thing that would set off the familiar glimmer I longed to see from beneath his emerald green eyes.

_If only… If only… If only …If—_

"Hey! Give that back!"

Arnold's voice echoed through the shop, and I blinked myself back to reality to look over in the direction of where my familiar footballhead was glaring up at the other customer who was the size of a linebacker. In their hand was an album—one that I could see from where I stood had that of Dino Spumoni's face on it.

It was _the_ album.

"No way, little dude," the stranger insisted while holding the album away from Arnold's desperate grasping. "Do you know how much this puppy is worth?"

"But I had it first," he expressed, his tone growing more distressed with each word and fling of his arm toward what the man held away from him. "You took it out of my hand."

"Yeah, so that _I_ couldhave it," the man's voice was smug; arrogant. This dude thought he could just get away with taking something because he _could._

As nice as Arnold was and as harsh as he could be when pushed, he didn't seem to phase the giant stranger who towered over him. "Please," Arnold began to plead, "You don't know what this album means to me…"

"And _you_ don't know what it's gonna mean to my _wallet_ ," the man countered.

That was all that I needed to butt my way in to their dispute and place myself directly between this douche-nugget and Arnold. This _imbecile_ thought that he was going to walk away with this album after _swiping_ it out of Arnold's hands because he was some 'big, strong, tough guy?' He was _clearly_ looking for a sweet, sweet kiss from my fists.

"Hey. Iron Giant," I addressed him while shooting a confident glare up in his direction. "How about you leave my friend alone here and I'll let you mosey on home without your eyes so swollen shut that you end up running into every single trash can, pole, and sign that you encounter?" My long-winded threat didn't strike fear in the man's eyes, though I could tell he was surprised at my sudden involvement.

With a somewhat awkward chuckle, the man shifted his gaze between Arnold and me. "Are you really threatening me? Over some stupid record?"

"Are _you_ really so stupid that you think I won't punch your lights out faster than you can say 'I'm sorry for being a literal ass?'" I retorted as I tightened my fists at my side in preparation for my next move.

Arnold wasn't having it though.

"Helga, stop," He demanded in a harsher tone than I'd anticipated. The sudden change in his demeanor threw me off guard, and I stepped aside to look at him as he moved to the forefront to stare up at our selfish stranger.

"Listen," Arnold began firmly without so much as a stutter or waver in his voice. "I found that album first. Fair and square. It was in _my_ hand and you _will_ give it back to me."

This amused the man and he took a lone step in to further intimidate and loom over Arnold and me. In a low growl, he said, "Oh yeah? And what are _you_ gonna do about it… _kid_?"

My eyes shot over to Arnold who didn't even flinch at the words the man spat in his face. With an intensity I hadn't seen in Arnold in a long time, he narrowed his eyes and matched the stranger's tone to say in return, "What will we do?" He repeated before turning to look at me and silently tell me the next step in his plan. Fully understanding what it was I had to do, Arnold faced the stranger again and simply stated, "We're going to take it back."

With that, as the stranger was distracted and utterly confused, I reached out to snatch the album from his grubby hands. "C'mon, Shortman!" I hollered as Arnold and I turned around to begin running away from the angry man we left behind.

"Hey! Get back here!" he demanded, but we didn't listen. The man may have been dumb, but he certainly wasn't dumb enough to follow after the two of us and cause a scene. Not only did this cashier not care, but we were just teenagers. Surely the dude didn't want to get into a huge fight with a couple of kids.

After we paid for the record and it was safely in a bag that Arnold carried with pride at his side, we slowly walked down the sidewalk in pursuit of the bus stop. Evening was approaching and the sun had just begun to slowly sink into the horizon; the sky morphing into bright hues of oranges and pinks that swirled together like paint on a canvas. Once we made it to the bus stop, we took a seat on the bench to wait while Arnold pulled out the album and gave it a look-over.

"I can't believe we found it," He mused while staring at the cover with a smile.

"Technically _you_ found it," I corrected him before smirking and leaning back into the bench we sat on. "And what _I_ can't believe is _you_ , Hair Boy."

Arnold carefully placed the album back in the plastic bag before turning to look at me with a raised brow. "What can't you believe?"

"That guy was _huge,_ Arnold," the words came out in shock as though the memory of him was even bigger than he had been in reality. "I'm surprised you had the guts to stand up to him like that. You didn't even _flinch_."

"You were the one threatening to start a fight, Helga, not him. Why would I flinch?" he soon countered, and I shrugged my shoulders.

"He seemed pretty antagonistic to me. He could have socked you right there, but you just…. _Stood_ there." I said with a smirk. "But me? That's not really how I work, you know that. I was ready to pick a fight. And If he ended up giving me two black eyes, he would have at _least_ gotten one and it would have been worth it, too. You _were_ walking away with that album if it was the last thing I did, today."

"At least it didn't come to that," Arnold said while reaching out to lace his hand with mine and offered a light squeeze. "I think our plan worked just fine."

"You're telling me. For once you and your giant head were the brains of the operation," I offered, and Arnold shook his head in amusement.

"It can't _always_ be you, you know," he soon replied with a twinkle in his eye; the hint of a tease with a half-smile that I could hardly resist. "I can be clever and witty too."

"You have your grandparents to thank for that," I told him earnestly; the glimmer in his gaze dulling as he soaked in what I was saying. "I think that Gertie and Phil would be proud of you for holding your ground and getting that album back. I'll bet it was something _they_ would have done."

"Grandpa definitely would have," Arnold agreed with a nod and a smile at the thought. I could tell that he was thinking of either a memory or trying to imagine him doing such a thing. He was lost in the thought for a moment before letting out a chuckle and adding, "Grandma would have gone a much, _much_ more dramatic route, though."

"You're probably right about that, footballhead."

Together we sat, hand in hand, on the bench as we waited for the bus to arrive. With each new conversation and laugh that we shared, I relished the future the two of us would surely have. If today had proven anything, it was that Arnold and I worked best in tandem with each other; just like another couple we knew.

And when we reached Sunset Arms again and headed up for Arnold's room, the first thing he did was put on that record; the music filling the air to transport us back to that legendary couple's very first date. Like them, Arnold and I would have many a story to tell our grandchildren one day, and maybe someday, they too would go on a mission to find some missing relic of our love and fight to get it.

My only hope was that, like Arnold, they too wouldn't flinch at the opportunity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is a day late and i'm sorry that it isn't a super awesome interpretation. i worked really hard on it and i had a great idea but i feel like the plot got away from me and now i'm not sure if i like it but I'll let you be the judge. 
> 
> please let me know what you think! xo


	3. Satellite

**SHORTAKI WEEK, DAY 3**

_**Satellite** _

* * *

" _You're my satellite_

_You're riding with me tonight_

_Passenger side, lighting the sky, always the first star that I find_

_You're my satellite."_

_\--'Satellite' by: Guster--_

* * *

One year. Today marked an entire year of dating Helga and this time, I knew it was real. In fact, I knew within the first week of our dating that this relationship was the one that would end in marriage. In all the years that we'd known each other, Helga and I had engaged in a relationship at least a dozen different times. We were that couple that was always on and off again—neither of us ever truly giving our entire selves to the other with vulnerability and unyielding honesty.

All that changed a few years ago.

We had begun talking fairly regularly again—the two of us had always maintained a casual friendship, even despite our complicated romantic history. But one day, something inside of me wanted to reach out to Helga in a closer way; something _beyond_ the occasional 'like' on a post she shared or a comment on a status she'd written.

That's right.

I slid into Helga's DMs.

At first, I think she was really shocked that it was _me_ who had done the 'reaching out' part. Almost every other time since before our high school graduation, it had been _her_ who had outstretched a line of communication towards me. After we graduated, though, she stopped trying. I supposed that was my _own_ fault. I mean, how many times can someone reach out to another until they realized that they themselves were the ones holding the relationship together?

I guess that means that the old adage, "absence makes the heart grow fonder," is pretty accurate. At Helga's absence, I found that I missed her quick wit, poetic words, and frankly, her overly romantic gestures. I missed her love because, at age twenty, I finally admitted to myself that I wanted to and was ready to fully love her back. Love her to the fullest extent.

Fast-forward a few years from that initial first message on my part, and you'd wind up here, at Chez Paris, one year ago. We'd met up to talk and hang out countless times in our last few years of regular conversation and friendship, but this time was different. I had specifically asked her out to dinner at a restaurant that was _much_ more expensive than we typically went to. I'm sure Helga knew that _something_ was up, but then again, maybe I caught her off guard.

Trapped on a public dinner date with me, I exposed my every feeling. I explained how I really _was_ as dense as she had always told me I was because it took me nearly two decades to come to terms with my feelings for her. I told her that each time we dated, I knew that I was holding back the inner devotion that I felt towards her—this bond, this connection that I could never shake, not even when we were children back at P.S. 118. I expressed that for me, it had _always_ been Helga; even though I didn't realize it at the time. The desire I felt to reach the _true_ Helga that hid behind the guise of a bully was really just my heart trying to get to it's other half.

Then I went on blathering about how she was never an enemy, or an acquaintance, or even just a _friend_ to me. That she was my soulmate. I listed off countless times that it had been Helga who had saved my skin from a bad situation, impending trouble, _myself_ , or even the depths of the jungles and the evil river pirates who dominated them. I called her an angel—always there, always protecting me, always thinking of me and always loving me. I said I'd taken her for granted.

After I finished the long speech that I had rehearsed over a hundred different times throughout the last week, I took Helga's hand from across the table. It was the kind of touch that we hadn't shared in years, and I can only speak for myself in the fact that it sent a jolt of electricity throughout my body. It was like fireworks before the kiss.

That was when Helga dropped the bomb of the century.

She went on to talk about the _extent_ of her feelings for me. Suddenly, Helga was purging all of these things she had done out of adoration for me and moments we had shared that I'd never known were her doing all along. Towards the end of her long string of stories, she admitted that us being at Chez Paris was ironic—the two of us having shared one of the most special moments of her life here.

Naturally, I thought she was talking about the time she brought Gerald, Phoebe, and myself here in mistaking it for Chez Pierre, which ended in a night filled with way too much food, cockroaches, and a stack of dirty dishes taller than the two of us combined. However, it wasn't this night that Helga was referring to—it was a night long before that, a night that my young mind had never forgotten and never believed would be resolved.

Especially not by Helga G. Pataki.

That night was the night that sealed our fate. By the two of us baring our souls to one another in a fashion that neither of us had ever done, it was like this key had unlocked the two of us so we could finally reach each other. It was as though our entire lives, there we were, stuck in two jail cells that were right next door. We could hear each other and see each other, but we could never truly _reach_ each other.

Our year together had been perfect. Sure, there were a few hiccups of arguments that weren't worth having, but overall, our first year had gone by without a hitch. We'd moved into an apartment together and had talked about looking for a house within the next few years. She was a regular at Sunset Arms when I'd visit and my family—both biological and chosen—had accepted her as one of their own. My parents loved her.

And I loved her.

For our big anniversary, I decided to take her once again to Chez Paris—a place that seemed to be a fixture in our lives; a hub where we always connected on a different level. It may have been expensive, but it was always worth every penny, but not for the food. The conversations and moments that were shared between us while there were the meals that _really_ satiated me; they satiated my _soul_.

We'd chosen to walk to the restaurant. It had been a nearly perfect autumn day and the walk was a pleasant one; a soft breeze propelling us onward for our upcoming reservation. Once inside, we took the spot that we usually sat in—a corner towards the back of the restaurant that offered a bit of privacy other parts of the eatery didn't have.

All throughout the dinner, I couldn't help but stare at Helga. She looked so beautiful with the way her golden hair framed her face. On her face was just the hint of make-up; a gentle sparkle catching my eye every so often when she'd turn her head just right. The blue of her eyes was so deep that I could have drowned in them as she looked at me and her voice, her laughter, resounded in my ears like a melody I couldn't shake.

The woman that sat in front of me was just that: a woman. Helga had grown up to be an elegant, graceful albeit feisty woman with a wit so fast one could hardly keep up. She was clever and wickedly smart—smarter than her sister, who may have had the book-smarts down but lacked that of the street-smarts which Helga possessed. Everything that sat before me was what I had never anticipated Helga to become, not because she was incapable, but because _I_ was incapable.

Until recently, I had been unable and possibly unwilling to see how incredible Helga had grown into, yet had always been. Though the unibrow was gone along with her bow and pink dress, Helga was still there, only wiser and more mature. She'd blossomed into a flower that I'd never expected to bloom so effortlessly. Each part of her was intoxicating, a scent that I would spend eternities entertaining and indulging in.

My year with Helga had really opened up a different side of me.

It's funny what admitting your true feelings can do—Helga was onto something with that, even when we were only nine. A year with my feelings out in the open, and _actively_ out in the open at that… well let's just say that it had certainly evoked the poet inside of me that Helga had been molding since we were children.

It was her love and those confessions of hers that had planted the seed of a romantic.

"One whole year together," I stated when our waiter came by to take our empty plates away from the table. "It feels like it's been a lot longer."

Taking a sip from her water glass, Helga set it down before swallowing and saying with a smile, "Yeah well we've kinda known each other since before we can _remember_. You really could say that we've been together for _much_ longer."

"Do you also find it weird to think that we used to be so young?" I asked as Helga eyed me curiously at the question I posed. "I mean, I look at you as Helga, but every once in a while, I see glimpses of _Helga…_ The angry, mean girl with the pink bow and her not-so-secret crush."

Without missing a beat, she responded, "Eh. To me, you'll always just be some twerpy, football-headed sap." I frowned at this; the hint of sneer tugging at Helga's lips before she added, "But at least now you're MY twerpy, football-headed sap."

"Sap?" I repeated in surprise. "I was never a sap, Helga. If anyone is the sap in this relationship, it's you." Even after my explanation, Helga merely looked at me through a deadpan. After a few seconds without response, I said blankly while giving her a bored look, "You were in _love_ with me."

"I _am_ in love with you," she stated matter-of-factly.

"And I'm in love with you, but that's not what's up for debate right now, is it?"

A long pause followed my utterance and I watched Helga carefully as the faintest of smiles played on her lips. Our eyes were locked on each other—a silent stare-off occurring from either side of the restaurant table. After about a minute of this, I engaged in trying once more to illustrate my point. "Now. Can you _honestly_ say that you _weren't_ the sappiest one out of two of us? Think of how many dramatic and intensely-romantic confessions you've given me over the years."

She seemed to think this over briefly; her eyes shifting upwards as if looking at the ceiling would conjure the memories of her each and every display of feelings she'd given me throughout our lives together.

Holding out her hands, she began to list off moments of our history together on each of her fingers as though they were the capitals to states that she'd had to memorize for a test. "The FTi roof. The crows nest on the boat to San Lorenzo. Oh! There was that time that I confessed everything to you on a voicemail at the boarding house while I was high on laughing gas—"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Nothing," she quickly dismissed and soon moved on with her thought process without giving me a chance to interrogate her further on what she had so casually just mentioned. "In 6th grade there was another one… that time I told you that I wanted to be with you in the _official_ sense, but you had been apparently 'under the impression' that we were already dating."

"That's because we _were_ already dating."

"Well, _that's_ debatable," Helga retorted with a scoff before yet again moving on too quickly for either of us to linger on the details. "Then there was that confession our Junior year. That one was fun."

"Fun? Helga, you're crazy," I told her as the waiter stopped by our table to set down the leather pocketbook that held the bill for our dinner inside. Nodding to him, I reached out to take it while continuing with my sentiment towards what Helga had brought up. "You _cornered_ me at Rhonda's 'Summer Beach Spectacular' party and proceeded to drag me into a closet."

"I did not _drag_ , I invited you—"

"Helga, you grabbed my wrist and demanded that I follow you by yanking me into the mansion. I spilled my punch." I recounted as Helga simply laughed at the memory.

"You were wearing _swimming trunks,_ Arnold. What, your skin not waterproof?" She teased, and I ignored her to go on with my story.

"And when you slammed the door to keep the two of us crammed inside that closet, you slammed it so hard that the _doorknob_ fell off," I reminded her, a light blush coloring the pale flesh of Helga's cheeks as I kept on with the events from years ago. "Of course, you didn't realize that the doorknob had fallen off until _after_ you had given your big confession, which meant that we were trapped in there with our teenage shame until the party ended nearly _three hours later._ "

As if offering me some kind of consolation prize for the traumatic incident, Helga muttered, "At least we didn't die in there, seeing as Eugene had brought a coat to a summer party for some unknown reason."

Opening the billfold to reveal our check, I reached into the pocket of my pants for my wallet and plucked out my credit card. "I think it had something to do with a sunburn," I mumbled while sliding the plastic card into the appropriate slot and closing the billfold. Within moments, our waiter was at our table to collect it so he could run my card and pay for our dinner.

After the waiter had left with my card, Helga held up one hand with her fingers proudly splayed. "Well, if my fingers are correct, that equals a total of only five confessions." She then wiggled her fingers individually while playfully saying, "Read 'em and weep, Hair Boy."

"Why am I weeping, again?" I wondered while gesturing towards the hand she was holding up. "That's four more confessions than I've ever given."

"Ahh, but that _one confession_ happened exactly a year ago, didn't it?" Helga taunted, her mockery going on to say, "and _boy_ , was it a _DOOZY_!"

Knowing exactly where she was headed with this, my smile faded as I said without emotion, "Helga..."

"You took me out to dinner," she began to tell me as though I had forgotten the events of that day. As if I ever _could_. "You took me _here_ , to Chez Paris. Little did you know at the time that it was here that we _technically_ had our very first date when we were only nine."

"Okay, you can _not_ continue to claim that that was a date, Helga," I defended with a slight shake of my head and a narrowing of my eyes. "You gaslit me until we were in our _twenties_ that the 'Cecile' I met that Valentine's Day was some mystery girl that I would never, ever find again."

The waiter soon returned with the familiar leather billfold and a pen which he handed to me for my signature. Taking it, I once again offered him a thankful nod of my head while setting it down and opening it to take out the receipt I needed to sign. Just as I clicked the pen in preparation to endorse the paper, Helga spoke softly.

"You didn't _need_ to find her," she said just above a whisper. "She was around."

A smile spread across my face and I set the pen down so I could reach across the table and take Helga's hand into my own. "I know. You've _always_ been there."

For a moment, the both of us shared a look that was filled with love and adoration that could be unmatched by even the most famous of lovers. It was a look of sincerity, of mutual devotion that could power entire cities with the energy of it. I allowed us to linger in this gaze for a long while before I at last broke eye contact and slowly slid my hand away from Helga's to pick up the pen that I had previously been holding.

Just as the pen returned to my grip, I pulled the receipt closer to me so I could begin signing my signature. As I did so, I said in a firm, yet mocking tone, "It's because you stalked me all throughout elementary school. You were a stalker, Helga. Of _course,_ you've always been there."

Catching onto my humor, Helga gave a lackluster defense. "Okay, _true_ , but at least I _told_ you about it."

"Last year!" I exclaimed mid-laugh as I finished signing my name and set the receipt back into the leather pocketbook. "You can say that my confession was top notch all you want, but it was _your_ addition; your confession-that-you-don't-consider-a-confession, that was the _real_ confession."

Not buying my argument, Helga leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest. "It wasn't a confession; it was a _response_." At my confused stare, Helga soon added, "A confession is in the initiation."

Eyeing her skeptically, I mirrored her pose while asking, "And _what_ does that mean, exactly?"

Unfolding her arms, Helga sat up straight for a second before leaning in towards me over the table and speaking softly as though divulging some kind of salacious secret. "You know. Like if we were in a movie or something, there would be an orchestration lead up that blooms with—you guessed it—a _confession_." She then leaned up to sit with perfect posture and said confidently, "And since it was _you_ who initiated it with that whole bit about me being a fixture in your life and the universe pushing us together and you were tired of not being with me—"

My mouth curled up into a grin as I interrupted her to state rather than ask, "You remember it in verbatim, don't you?"

"Unimportant," she said instantaneously before continuing as though I hadn't disrupted her at all. "You see, _that confession_ was the bloom of the metaphorical score! _My_ response, as sappy and romantic as it was, doesn't count because it happened during the cool-down of the music. Do you see what I'm saying? It's in the _music_ , Arnoldo."

"The music that isn't real," I described as Helga nodded her head without thought at how ridiculous the notion sounded.

"Right."

"Okay," I let her have the win so I could come in with, what I had hoped would be the final word on what started this entire conversation. "But you _do_ realize that you just admitted you were sappy. Just now, you said that."

Without so much as a blink, Helga responded, "No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did," I argued before leaning forward myself to tell her from across the table, "You said, and I quote, 'my response, as sappy and romantic as it was…'" I waited for acknowledgement at what I'd so perfectly played as if we were each showing our final hands in a wild game of poker. "By saying that, you _admit_ that you are, indeed, sappy."

Not giving me any satisfaction in my obvious victory, Helga shrugged her shoulders calmly. "Sure. I'll admit that. I'm sappy."

Once again, I waited for my big 'gotchya!' moment, but it never came. After a few beats of awkward silence, I decided to _voice_ my victory. "So, I win then."

"Oh, ho, ho," Helga let out a laugh while waving her hands in front of herself to stop me. "Absolutely not, Shortman." Sensing my confusion, Helga explained herself. "You see, the debate was never _if_ I was sappy. I think it's pretty obvious that I'm a sappy human being. Unfortunately for you, the original argument was who was the sappi _est,_ and that, my sweet, good-hearted, football-headed love-god, that's you."

I looked at her incredulously at the statement she'd just given me complete with what may be one of the sappiest statements ever voiced aloud in a public place. "Oh, c'mon! All of that and it's somehow still _me_ who's the sappiest?"

"You called me an angel," Helga reminded me.

Raising my brow, I reminded _her_ of the words that she had just spoken. "And _you_ just called me a love-god. Among other things."

The candle that flickered between us on the table at Chez Paris was the only movement around us. As we'd paid our bill, the waiter left us alone to sit and stare at one another in a staring contest that could go down as one of our most intense yet.

Finally, it was Helga who broke at long last to say, "Alright. So, maybe we're _both_ sappy. _I'm_ really sappy and _you're_ super sappy, but _neither_ of us is more sappy than the other." She waited momentarily to be sure my facial expression told her that I understood what she was saying. Just to be sure, Helga verbalized, "You got that bucko?"

With a satisfied smile and a softening of my gaze, I simply said, "Whatever you say, Helga."

* * *

By the time we left the restaurant, the sky had deepened into a soft navy-blue. The light from the moon above helped to light the cement of the sidewalk we followed in the direction of our apartment complex that was located only a few blocks down the road.

With Helga's arm wrapped securely in mine as though I were escorting her somewhere important, both her mind and eyes were far away—her attention fixated upward on the night sky and the pinholes of light that rained down on us in a drizzle of illumination.

"I think if I hadn't gotten into writing, I might have liked to be an astronomer," Helga noted while continuing to look up passed the roofs of the many buildings that made up Hillwood. "I always thought that stars were fascinating."

"Why is that?" I questioned while glancing over to her, though she didn't turn to look my way as she answered.

"I don't know," she mused while concentrating on articulating whatever it was that she felt when looking up and out towards space. "I guess I just think it's kinda neat how there are potentially _billions_ of stars we can't even see because they're so far away that their light hasn't even _hit_ us yet." She shook her head at the concept before blinking her attention away. "That's just crazy."

"Are you saying that your mission, if you were an astronomer, would be to try and discover the stars that were so far away, _light itself_ hasn't even caught up to us yet?" I assumed, and Helga sighed as though unsatisfied with my interpretation of what she'd told me.

"I'd just like to get a closer view," she said. "They're so far away. They're out of touch. Don't you think that stars like attention too?"

"I think that stars are just stars," I replied flatly. "They're just really hot balls of gas that emit light."

"Maybe in the scientifical sense they are," Helga stopped us from continuing our walk and turned to face me. "Just be that dumb, dreamy footballhead that we all know and love for two seconds here, okay?"

At her instruction, I huffed out a breath and grinned while shutting my eyes and trying to follow what Helga was saying. "Okay. I'm ready."

"Imagine you're a star," she told me as I envisioned myself floating out in a vast abyss of space just above the Earth below. "Imagine all the other stars that are around you, all while knowing that you are just one of many, many, _many,_ immeasurable amounts of stars. Kind of like people on the Earth or grains of sand."

"Okay…"

"And there you are," she went on in a soothing voice, "floating out there in space while all your other friends shine brighter than you because they're just a _little bit_ closer to the action than you are. But that doesn't mean you don't exist, right? You still want to be seen, to… to spread your light and brighten some little kid's life with a wish or whatever."

Opening one of my eyes, I looked at Helga with a tiny upturn of my lips, "Is that how wishes work, then, Miss Astronomer?"

"Shut it," she insisted before returning to entwine her arm with mine and pulled me to follow her in our walk home. "I just would want to see them. Hell, I'd be happy at this point if I could see the stars we _can_ see with the naked eye."

"What do you mean?" I wondered aloud and Helga gestured up to the buildings that surrounded us.

"All these tall skyscrapers… they're in the way." She noted while letting out a heavy sigh. "I wish we could just… demolish them all for a second so we could see the sky."

Triggering a memory that I'd all but forgotten, an idea popped into my head. Moving to unfurl our arms and instead take Helga's hand, I began pulling her to follow me off course from the direction of our apartment. Without so much as a question, Helga followed blindly behind me; her trust in me so strong that it didn't matter where it was that we were headed. As Gerald had once told me years ago on a bus to nowhere: the journey _is_ the destination.

Approaching a tall and abandoned old building, I looked up towards the roof as Helga stared at me with a furrowed brow. "So, what's the plan, Maestro? Something here worth seeing?"

Pointing towards the structure, I said, "Do you remember when we went to the boarding house the other day for dinner?"

Lifting her shoulders for a moment, she soon dropped them while shaking her head. "I mean, I guess so. Why?"

"Ernie had mentioned that he had a big demolition project coming up on this block. And that—" I pointed up to the building once more, "—is the demolition project. This building is abandoned _and_ …" I tugged at her arm as we made our way towards the door that had once been an entrance. "I happen to know that it's unlocked and has access to the roof."

Catching on to what I was suggesting, Helga beamed at me before nodding her head rapidly. "What are we waiting for?" She asked, and the two of us took off to enter the musty building and begin our ascent up the flights of stairs leading to the roof.

Reaching the last of the stairs, the both of us stood before a set of double-doors labeled, 'Roof Access, Authorized Personnel ONLY.' Throwing caution to the wind, we pushed on the long metal bar that acted as a doorknob and made our way onto the open rooftop that revealed the plethora of stars shining brightly above us.

Slowly, Helga walked across the length of the roof until she reached the edge where she rested her body against the cement railing while looking up. Following behind her, I too leaned against the wall prohibiting an accidental fall; my eyes focused on something far more beautiful than a starlit sky.

My line of vision consisted only of Helga as she stood marveling up at the stars while I marveled over her. The way her eyes twinkled up in wonder at the stars was a beauty that even the best of photographers could never capture in one image alone. That twinkle which lived in her sapphire eyes was a star of its own; reflecting back the light which rained down on her and bathed her silhouette in a pale beam of unfiltered light.

She was beautiful; a beauty that writers couldn't describe, and artists couldn't paint. Helga's was a beauty that radiated from the inside out, though her exterior may appear hard at first glance. I was mystified by her, intrigued by her, and completely entranced by her.

How could I have waited so long to allow myself to be so in love?

"You've always been a star to me," Helga said out of the blue, her words forcing me to return to the present as she spoke up to the sky; her words directed at me. "You were this one bright spot in my life while we were growing up, but you were always so… so _unattainable_. You seemed so far away from ever truly being mine, as much as I may have wanted."

I listened intently as she talked, my ears hungry for her every sentence that I hung upon.

"And then the trip to San Lorenzo happened," she recalled with a fond smile. "You felt closer after all of that. You were closer like how the brightest of all the stars in the sky is closest to the Earth. Your light shined so brilliantly, that you were always the first one I could find among all of the others. Even so… you still felt light-years away. _Too_ far away. A distant dream that I desperately wanted to return to but knew that I never could."

"Helga—" I tried, though she held her hand up to stop me while continuing to speak to the stars, though delivering a message straight to me.

"As we dated, and didn't date, merged from friends to enemies and back—"

"We were never _enemies_ ," I interrupted, and for the first time since she'd began talking, Helga turned to look at me from over her shoulder. "At least… not to _me._ I never saw you as an enemy."

Taking a beat to process what I'd said, Helga set her sights back on the sky to follow through with her thoughts. "You were still always there," she explained as if I hadn't spoken at all. "You were _always_ shining—the brightest star in the sky. It wasn't until we started talking again a few years ago that I realized you were never a _star_."

Caught completely off-guard, I asked, "Is that an insult?"

"No," Helga cooly said as she pushed herself away from the cement wall and turned to face me full-on. "Absolutely not. You weren't a star because you were a satellite. My own, personal satellite." She took a few steps towards me as she went on. "You were always there, right by my side, through thick and thin. Even when we weren't together, you were still around. It's just that you were a little... well, a little out of reach."

Outstretching my arm to offer Helga my hand, she took it without hesitation and at last allowed me to voice my thoughts in response to what she'd said. "I hope you don't feel like I'm out of reach anymore," I told her thoughtfully while pulling her into my embrace and looking deeply into her crystal-cool pools of blue. "I'll always be right _here._ You don't have to see me as some faraway light in the sky, anymore."

"I know," she responded while resting her hands up on either of my shoulders. At her touch, my hands instinctively moved to gently take up residence on her waist. "You finally came down to Earth and out of that giant, freakishly-shaped head of yours. And for _that_ … I love you, Arnold."

My left hand raised from her waist to softly brush my fingers against her cheek; Helga's eyes fluttering closed as she nestled into my touch. "I love you too, Helga."

We remained like this, basking in each other under the tranquility of the moon's delicate lighting for a good minute. After allowing myself to get lost in all that is Helga, I dropped my hand from her face which in turn cued her to open her eyes and look at me with silent confusion.

"So, a _satellite_ , huh?" I repeated her description of me back to her as she looked up with me with an amused expression. "I'm just a satellite that revolves around you?"

"I'm _your_ satellite too, football-face." Nodding in mock contempt at her nickname, Helga went further to say, "We... revolve around each other."

My eyes lit up at her observation. "I love that," I expressed while leaning in to lightly peck her lips. "And I love you," once again I dipped in to brush my lips against hers only to pull back and give her a sad, almost guilty look. "But I _have_ to be the bad guy here and bring something to your attention."

Leaning away and taking a single step back from me, Helga folded her arms loosely across her chest. "Oh yeah? And what's that?" She was challenging me, and with an unruly grin, I merely lifted my hands to hold up six fingers.

"That, right there… the whole, 'satellite versus star' thing…" I shrugged my shoulders while wiggling my fingers one by one. "That was your sixth confession, so—"

"Arnold," Helga attempted to halt me, but I was already off and by all counts, unstoppable.

"—that means that you've officially given FIVE MORE—" I pressed on, my voice growing louder to try and talk over Helga who was trying to out-voice me with her own arguments.

"—that was not a confession, Hair Boy!" She guffawed, before reaching out to grab at my hands and push them down playfully as if it would silence me from my point.

It didn't.

"That's FIVE MORE confessions than me, Helga," I finalized with a confident raise of my brow. "Admit it. _You're_ the sappiest. It's _you._ "

Adding yet another stare-down to our anniversary night, this was one that would go down in the books as potentially the longest we had shared to date. I could tell from the way Helga glared at me that she didn't want to give up, she wasn't _willing_ to give up, but a glint in her eye said otherwise. What had to be nearly three minutes of solid silence ended with a dramatic huff from Helga.

"Fine," she admitted with a tone of defeat, though her eyes kept their impish glimmer. " _I'm_ the sappiest. Okay? Are you happy now, Arnold?"

Helga found her way back into my arms, her back resting against my chest as I enveloped her in my arms while we both gazed up at the stars. Planting a kiss on her head, I mumbled my answer into her silky, smooth hair.

"Blissfully."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I picked this prompt because one of my favorite songs of all time is a song entitled, "Satellite" by: Guster, and I'm a sucker for an excuse to do a songfic, so I hope you enjoy this! I am particularly proud of the dialogue-- I think it was super fun and went well. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think! Hopefully you enjoyed the fluff :)


	4. Switch

**SHORTAKI WEEK, DAY 4**

_**Switch** _

* * *

Adjusting to Freshmen-life at Hillwood High School had proven to be more difficult than either Arnold or Helga had anticipated. As they watched their friends thrive in their new environment, both felt as though they were still struggling to find their place within clubs, classes, and cliques. Each day during the first few weeks was a rush to navigate through the unfamiliar hallways that were filled to the brim with bustling students who had long since learned the various shortcuts and routes to most effectively get to their next hour's class.

Arnold and Helga on the other hand, were still taking the less-direct paths which led them around corners and into one another on a semi-frequent basis. And while this collision was not something that the pair had never accidently done before, on this particular afternoon, it _would_ prove to be an encounter that would forever change their young lives.

SMACK!

Right around the corner of the 500 and 300 wing, Arnold Shortman ran directly into Helga G. Pataki, both of their armfuls of textbooks, notebooks, pens, and other high school essentials scattering around them like confetti from a canon.

" _Seriously,_ footballhead?!" Helga exclaimed as she began collecting her various items that had mingled with Arnold's on the floor of the hallway. " _Personally,_ I would have thought that by now, you'd know how to use your own two feet properly!"

"Sorry, Helga," Arnold grumbled as he too began feverishly gathering his things as quickly as possible. The warning bell had already rang, and both he and Helga were sure to be late if they didn't hurry. "I guess I was just in a rush."

"I'll say," the young blonde responded while glancing up to sneak a glimpse at the boy who had stolen her heart ages ago and still possessed to this day. Her eyes lingered on the boy with the oddly shaped head for a long moment as he picked up his belongings, though her gaze brought heat to his skin causing him to look up and meet eyes with his feisty classmate.

"What?" the boy asked her while pausing momentarily mid-reach for his phone which lay face-down in its black protective case.

"What, _what_ , Arnoldo?" Helga spat back at him while maintaining their eye-contact and reaching to grab her own phone.

"You're staring at me," Arnold noted while finally palming the phone and reaching back to shove it into the pocket of his jeans. Without leaving Helga's eyes, he reached towards the next item on his horizon—his Algebra 2 textbook, which he needed for the class that he was nearly positive he would be late to after his run-in with Helga.

Out of everything she had dropped, Helga's own cellphone was the least of her worries—her focus instead on the notebook that lay just head of where Arnold was squatting before her. Inside the pages of that notebook were some of Helga's deepest thoughts and strongest feelings regarding him and their complicated relationship.

He could never find out what was written on the lines of the papers inside.

Taking the phone she'd grabbed to cram it into the side-pocket of the zip-up sweater she was wearing, she soon snatched the notebook while silently breathing a sigh of relief that Arnold was none-the-wiser as to what lay inside. "Uh, _newsflash—_ it's not _me_ who's doing the staring here, it's _you_." Her retort merely triggered Arnold to exchange a blank look with the quick-witted blonde before he picked up the last of the items he had dropped.

"Whatever you say, Helga," he recited—a typical ending to a typical conversation with the girl he still harbored feelings for even after all of these years. Oftentimes he would lie awake until the early hours of the morning while staring ahead at the stars that shone brightly above him through his skylight. His mind would endlessly replay moments the two of them had shared since their fifth-grade trip to San Lorenzo and wonder where it was that they went wrong.

Could it have been that they were too young?

Had they simply not been ready?

And more importantly, was there still a chance to remedy what the pair had seemingly lost?

For Arnold, the answers to his questions lay trapped inside the mind of one Helga G. Pataki; the object of both his desires and absolute frustration. He could never seem to wiggle himself back into her thought process, no matter how hard he tried—and he had certainly tried.

As the two parted ways for the next hour that would begin in less than a minute's time, neither realized that the phone in their pockets could hold the key to unlocking the mysteries that either teenager ruminated over time after time. Perhaps it was in their accidental switch that they would find their answers after all.

* * *

DING. DING. DING. DING.

Just as the bell let out its final ring, Helga slid into the seat of her English class. Panting from her jog after her crash with Arnold, Helga tossed the things she'd gathered in haste onto the top of her desk. Glancing her way, Phoebe immediately knew that something was troubling her best friend.

"Is everything alright, Helga?" She asked as their teacher continued talking in the opposite corner of the room to one of their fellow students. "You seem to be… discombobulated today."

"That's the understatement of the year," Helga answered while sorting through the compilation of things she'd gathered in haste just moments ago. "I swear to you, Pheebs, if I run into Arnold _one more time_ , I might kill him. This is the third time in two weeks that he's almost made me late for class."

"Considering how often the two of you run into one another, I think it may be improbable to expect it won't happen again," Phoebe mused with a soft smile. She knew of the mutual feelings that Helga and Arnold shared for one another. She herself had engaged in dating shortly after the infamous trip to San Lorenzo, however for Phoebe and Gerald, their partnership had proven to be successful in all of the ways that their best friends' relationship hadn't.

Despite this, both Phoebe and Gerald never let go of the hope that their friends would one day reconnect in a way that would work out for the better. From their objective points of view, Helga and Arnold were perfect for one another. To them, it seemed that their friends merely lacked the motivation at being truly honest with one another; the _real_ kryptonite that plagued and stood in the way of their seemingly imminent relationship.

"I don't know, Phoebe," Helga finally said as she softly traced the cover of her precious notebook that Arnold had once again almost seen the contents of. "You'd think the way the universe keeps shoving us together, something would have happened by now."

"But something _did_ happen," Phoebe offered, though Helga was less than receptive.

"Yeah. In the _fifth grade_ ," she sneered before rolling her eyes and leaning back into the chair of her desk while crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "Maybe it's time to give up and face the facts. Arnold and I are just… _never_ going to work. We'll be forced to run into each other for the rest of our lives… our feelings littering the floor in a mess of emotional debris we keep having to pick up and hide away like some kind of… goddamn _racoon,_ or something. A crow, maybe. They collect things, don't they?"

The question confused Phoebe who was accustomed to Helga's nonsensical rants that typically revolved around Arnold only to jut off in another direction entirely by the end. "Y-Yes, they do, but Helga—"

"Honestly, it's fine, I guess," Helga continued as though she hadn't heard a word her friend had said. "So, we collect our feelings like objects. Big deal. If he isn't willing to show me his, then I sure as hell am not willing to show him mine." Seeing that their teacher was still conversing with someone across the way about what appeared to be a previous assignment, Helga snuck her hand into the pocket of her sweater to grab the phone that lay inside.

"That's all there is to it," she said while pulling out the phone and clicking the button on the side to illuminate the screen. "I'll keep my feelings to myself and Arnold—" Helga stopped mid-sentence as she stared down at the screensaver that looked back at her.

"Helga?" Phoebe called her friend's name with a twinge of fear beneath her voice. "Helga, what is it? Is your phone alright after your hallway mishap?"

"I don't know…" she uttered before holding up the phone for Phoebe to see, "because _this_ isn't my phone. It's _Arnold's_."

Meanwhile, a hallway over, Arnold Shortman had yet to notice that the phone residing safely in his pocket was not that of his own.

Slipping into his seat at the moment the bell chimed it's final chime, he too was glad that he hadn't collected another tardy slip like he had as a direct result of previous run-ins with Helga. It always seemed that the two of them found one another at the intersection of the 500 and 300 wings—Arnold silently wondered why he kept taking that route when he knew their colliding was almost fated to occur.

Perhaps he did it because he _wanted_ them to bump into each other.

Maybe he secretly hoped that one of these times, just once, Helga might not snap at him and instead spill her feelings rather than her notebooks, pens, and papers.

"Hey, Arnold!" Gerald whispered out to his friend from the next row, and Arnold turned his head to direct his gaze towards him. "Did you get my message?"

"Huh?"

Pulling out his own phone and holding it out underneath his desk, he wiggled it back and forth as if the action would further illustrate his question. "Your phone! Did you get my text?" His voice was barely a whisper and more of a calculated soft-shout. It was a good thing their teacher spent the majority of his time playing Sudoku behind his desk rather than paying any attention to the going-ons of his classroom.

"No, why?" Arnold responded while fighting with his jeans to take out his cellphone.

"Just check it, man," Gerald instructed before continuing to explain what the message said; alleviating the need to read the text in the first place. "We're meeting at Gerald Field after school today for baseball. You in?"

"Sure. Sounds like fun," he remarked before furrowing his brow. "But why didn't I feel my phone vibrate? You must have texted me right when Helga and I ran into each other."

"Ah man, _again_?" his friend said with mock surprise. "Mm mm MM. Arnold, I think the universe is trying to tell you something and you'd better start listening. Next time it may do something more drastic than ramming you into each other."

As Arnold finally freed the phone from his pocket and looked down towards the screen, his eyes widened in horror. "Uh… about that…" he muttered as Gerald eyed him curiously.

"What, the universe or baseball?"

"Both," Arnold answered before holding up the phone in his possession. "This isn't my phone."

"Then who's is it?" Gerald soon asked; Arnold clicking the button on the side to light up the screen which revealed a lockscreen with the image of a pink neon heart against a dark backdrop.

"Helga's."

"No…"

" _Yes_ ," Arnold insisted with a shake of his head. "Maybe the universe already took it up another notch…"

"Yeah, maybe," Gerald affirmed before shrugging his shoulders. "Or maybe it just doesn't want you to play baseball this afternoon."

"Gerald…"

"What?" He exclaimed as their teacher rose from their desk to finally make their way towards the front of the classroom to begin the hour. Apparently, he'd finished his latest Sudoku puzzle. "So, you gotta exchange phones with Helga. Big whoop. Use it to your advantage."

"Alright class," the teacher addressed the class. "Take out your textbooks and flip to page 2-0-2," he instructed as Gerald and Arnold followed suit; the football-headed boy setting Helga's phone carefully down to rest on his lap.

"What do you mean to my advantage?" Arnold whispered over while pulling out his algebra book and turning the pages to find the appropriate number.

"You know," Gerald muttered back while flipping through his own book. "Maybe we can hack in or something."

"To her phone?!" Arnold said loudly; a few stray eyes glancing in his direction at the minor outburst. Quieting himself, he leaned over to whisper back, "I'm not breaking into Helga's phone, Gerald. That's a breach of privacy. If she ever found out, she'd _kill_ me."

"Yeah. _If_ she found out," he soon responded. "And she won't."

"Oh yeah? How do you figure?"

Gerald shrugged his shoulders while thinking for a moment before saying, "I don't know. I'll talk to Phoebe."

"No. Absolutely not, Gerald," Arnold insisted as silence fell over the classroom at his words. Suddenly feeling a heat surround him at the countless eyes resting on him, their teacher included, a dark-red blush filled in Arnold's cheeks as he realized he'd been caught. "Sorry," he sheepishly told the teacher, who proceeded to begin explaining the latest in their mathematical lesson-plan.

Midway through his explanation, a wad of paper landed on the top of Arnold's desk; his eyes shooting over in the direction from where it came—Gerald. Picking it up and unfurling it, his eyes scanned over the words his friend had scrawled down for him to read.

_After class, meet me by my locker. I know a guy._

Frowning at the two sentences staring back at him, Arnold turned to shoot his friend a glare before shaking his head and mouthing the word, 'No.' But even though he had no intentions of breaking into Helga's phone, a part of Arnold couldn't help but wonder what lay behind the screen and inside Helga's mind.

Could the secrets Arnold seeked _really_ be locked away inside the phone precariously perched on his lap? And to what lengths was he willing to go to discover them?

* * *

"Gerald, I really think this is a bad idea," Arnold stated as he walked by his side from their lockers in pursuit of the 'connection' that awaited them.

"Re _lax_ , man," Gerald reassured his nervous friend while giving him a slap on the back and using it as a way to continue pushing him forward on their mission. "Fuzzy Slippers knows a guy who knows a guy who's cousins with this girl who knows how to hack into _anything._ They call her 'The Giant.'"

"The Giant?" he repeated with heavy skepticism. "I'm assuming that means they're tall or something?"

"No clue," the tall-haired boy admitted. "All I know is we're supposed to meet her in the 100 wing by that cluster of lockers nobody uses."

"The 100 wing?" Arnold intoned with obvious bias. "Gerald, nobody uses that hallway except to go into the wrestling room from the side door. Well, and the cafeteria, I guess. _And_ to do _shady things…_ "

"And just _what_ is it you think we are doing? We're breaking into Helga G. Pataki's _phone._ What's shadier than _that?_ " he emphasized. "Besides, wrestling doesn't start until after school _PLUS_ we've already had lunch… so _right now_ during sixth period with two more hours to go before school's done… Man, it is the _perfect_ meeting spot."

Not wanting to argue about whether or not they should follow through with his insane plan, the flaxen-haired boy moved on to ask a different kind of question just as they rounded the corner that led to the entrance of the 100 wing. "How long do you think it'll take?" he paused as though waiting for Gerald to tell him he understood what he was saying. To be more direct, Arnold reiterated himself. "You know, the hacking-in part."

"Shh!" Gerald shushed. "Keep your voice down, alright? We don't need everybody knowing that we're over here."

"Why not?" Arnold reacted right away. "We're not _not_ allowed to be in this hallway. There's a bathroom down here, we could always say we're going there or something." The pair continued to walk in silence for a moment as the slowly made their way down the infamous wing.

"I just can't be late to last period, again, Gerald," Arnold let out and he dropped his head back in annoyance while he continued to talk. "Mr. Nelson is a stickler for being on time—do you know that he locks the door when the bell rings?"

Perking his head up, Gerald said, "You've gotten yourself locked out of History class?" before letting out a jealous scoff. " _Man_! I _wish_ I could get myself locked out of that class. History _blows_ and Nelson's tests are _impossible_ to pass."

"I know that," he replied blankly before going on to stress, "That's why I don't think this is such a good idea! Who knows how long this is going to take."

"Shouldn't take longer than a couple minutes," A shriek called out; both Arnold and Gerald looking around themselves to find the source of the high-pitched voice. Emerging from behind the grouping of unused lockers, a small girl who barely stood at five-feet-tall approached the friends while pushing up her large glasses which were sliding down her nose. "Of course, that's all depending on the make, model… _year_."

"Oh, uh…" Arnold stuttered while fishing out the phone from his pocket once more and holding it out for the unassuming girl in front of him. "I don't know. It's just a phone. I _think_ it's like mine… so—"

"Hold up," Gerald interrupted as the girl took Helga's phone from Arnold's hand to begin inspecting it. "You mean to tell me that _you're_ 'The Giant?' The school's _best_ hacker _AND_ Ralphio's _seventeen_ year old cousin?"

"Wait, who's Ralphio?" Arnold questioned, though his inquiry was lost in the girl's answer.

"All that _you_ need to know, Gerald Martin Johanssen," the girl called him by his full name which immediately made him flinch with frightening surprise, "is that I can do exactly what you're looking for and I can do it for a small, minimal, and inconsequential fee."

"If you're looking for money, we don't have any, so—" Arnold began to tell her, though 'The Giant' was quick to dismiss him.

"I'm not interested in money," she stated before looking between the both of them. "I'm far more interested in secrets."

"Secrets?" the teenage boys repeated in unison as 'The Giant' nodded her head while gently tapping the back of Helga's phone against her hand.

"There's nothing more elusive than a good secret," she explained with a mischievous smirk. "And, as a hacker, secrets are a large part of my work. So. What secret do you have for me? One secret for one code, that's the rules."

Gerald and Arnold exchanged a look for a moment before the blonde softly muttered, "Gerald… I don't know if this is worth it."

"C'mon, man! Don't you want to know about the inner workings of Helga's mind?" He whispered back as though the girl ahead of them wasn't actively listening to their every word. "What happened to the bold kid running through the jungle to save his parents or fighting the man to save the neighborhood? Huh? Where's _that_ guy, right now?"

"It just seems… wrong," Arnold replied while reaching up to rub at the back of his neck and stealing a glance at 'The Giant' who looked on in curiosity. "I don't think I should break into Helga's private property."

"Arnold," Gerald stated blankly. "You and I both know that she's probably doing this _exact thing_ to your phone _right this minute_. I'll bet you twenty bucks that she's standing in the hallway, talking to Phoebe and trying to guess _your_ passcode so she can look at whatever secrets you've got hiding in there."

He thought this over while trying to imagine what Gerald had so precisely described for him.

"And you know what?" he went on to say, Arnold's eyes shooting back over to his friend as he continued. "With how smart Helga is… I would _also_ bet that she doesn't even _need_ a secrets-dealing hacker to do it either."

As Arnold considered Gerald's point, across the school and downstairs in the 600 wing Helga was staring down at the locked screen of the phone she'd mistakenly grabbed nearly an hour ago. "Stupid football-head losing his phone…" she muttered before huffing out a deep breath and dropping her arm while still holding the cellphone tightly in her grip. With exasperation, she rested her head against the metal of the lockers she leaned against while waiting for Phoebe to finish grabbing her books for their next class.

"I'm going to need a hacker if I _ever_ want to get into Arnold's phone."

"Helga!" Phoebe scolded before shutting her locker with the appropriate book she needed in her grasp. "You can't break into Arnold's phone. It's his personal property."

"So what?"

Phoebe frowned while knitting her brows together in an expression of great concern towards Helga's judgement. "It would violate his privacy."

Helga remained in control of her tone as she brushed off the objection. "He's not going to find out. This is _Arnold_ we're talking about, here. The kid barely knew I _existed_ up until that nonsense on the roof of the FTi building."

"I'm not so sure that I would agree with that, Helga, but to break into Arnold's phone is another issue of which I wholeheartedly disapprove." She shook her head more to herself than to Helga before softly squeaking out, "What about his _trust_?"

"What _about_ his trust?" Helga repeated while emphasizing a different part of the sentence entirely which gave it a distinctly sour aftertaste.

With a tired sigh, Phoebe said plainly, "Mutual trust is something that, once broken, is nearly impossible to repair. Suppose that Arnold didn't find out right away. Helga, I know you are smart enough to realize that Arnold _would_ discover it eventually. It could hinder your relationship should you already be engaged in one, _or…_ think of the damage an exposed secret of that magnitude could have on a _potential_ relationship between the two of you. Is that something you're willing to sacrifice so you can snoop through his phone and perhaps find nothing of significance?"

Groaning at Phoebe's opinion on the matter, Helga shot her a hopeful, yet irritated look. "You _could_ get me in though," she stated rather than asked. At Phoebe's lack of response, Helga went on. "Arnold's phone. _Hypothetically_ speaking… you _could_ hack into it. Am I right?"

Chewing over Helga's assumption, she decided to hint rather than answer. "Possibly."

"And you _really_ won't help me out with this?" Helga begged yet again, an ace hiding up her sleeve as she spoke. "You'd _really_ make me sit in the library and skip my next class, _OUR_ next class that _WE SHARE_ together? Hmm?"

Trying to walk away from Helga as she grew more and more persistent, Phoebe couldn't escape her longer strides that allowed her to catch up with ease. Just within reach, Helga called out as they walked, "You want me to have to watch some _long_ parade of videos which frustrate me _SO BADLY_ that I end up going _back_ to you and _EXPLODING_ like some kind of _wild ape?_ "

"Helga, please," Phoebe ordered from over her shoulder. She was angry at how right Helga was. Maybe it _would_ be the smart thing to skip what was implied and simply unlock the phone. At least by doing that, Helga would leave her alone with all of this nonsense.

As she thought this over with each step she took, Phoebe continued to listen while Helga kept painting the grim tale of her eventual compliance. "Picture it. _There you are._ You're _right there_ in the middle of the hallway while I'm bugging you even worse than I am now. And what do you _do_ , Phoebe?" Helga moved from talking to one side in lieu of the other. "What _can_ you do when I'm just jib-jabbin' away like a bird on your shoulder squawking and pecking at you as I chirp, _'Help me, Phoebe! Help me! Open the phone and help me!_ '"

Stopping mid-stride, Phoebe pivoted around to face Helga with an angry albeit bored expression dusted over her features.

As if silently telling her to continue, Helga took the imaginary cue and began speaking to the dark-haired girl with a mock sympathy so sweet, it could cause cavities. "I'll tell you what you do, Pheebs. You, being the kind-hearted, good, and true-blue friend that you are… you give in. And I'm sorry, but you know you will, I'm not wrong, am I?"

Phoebe knew she was right. Phoebe _also_ knew that it didn't matter. Helga would find a way regardless of her assistance or not. Helga herself went on to express her exact thoughts, but with her own words. "The only person I know better than _me_ … is you."

Catching the glare that was sent her way, Helga soon held her hands up in defense. "It's not a _bad_ thing, I mean, criminy! I'm pretty predictable too, we both know that."

"I guess so…" Phoebe quietly agreed, and Helga swooped in to play her final card—the ace she'd been saving for this very moment.

"Look. Phoebe," the teen began before giving her friend an exaggerated shrug. "I'm just trying to give you a shortcut here-a one-way ticket to jump you and I to the end of this headache."

"But Helga—" she tried to stand her ground, the foundation feeling flimsy beneath her weight as she began to faulter under Helga's towering presence.

"Please, Pheebs? I'm so, _so_ close here and if you do it now, you'll save us both a stupid-long process," She paused for dramatic effect while holding out her one hand as though using it to weigh the choices she was presenting, " _OR,_ we can give it a go and do this pointless dance which, worst case scenario, you _still_ don't help me and I just go reach out to the depths of the 100 wing and _hire_ someone to do it for me."

Phoebe eyed the pleading young woman who stood before her. She didn't _want_ to give in to Helga's cries for help, but she knew in her heart of hearts that by refusing to help, she was merely prolonging the inevitable. What were the ethical ramifications of denying her friend and forcing her to find another way? Could the method that Helga ultimately finds lead to something far worse than imagined? Worse yet than any threat the consequences of Phoebe helping right away may pose to the universe?

The scowl on Phoebe's delicate face hardened as she prepared to hold her stance. "Helga, I'm sorry, but I _must_ refuse to parti—"

"Wait, hang on a sec, Pheebs," Helga stopped her from finishing as she held out Arnold's phone to look down at the bright screen. " _Arnold_ just got a text message," she reported flatly, and Phoebe arched her brow.

Without thinking, she blurted out, "From who?"

Flipping the phone so the screen could face her four-eyed friend, Helga replied, "From _me_."

* * *

"I can't believe you told her about the dress-up thing," Arnold noted with a small smirk. "Honestly, I'd forgotten about it."

"As you rightfully _should_ have," Gerald countered with a lone shake of his head. "I mean, we looked _fabulous—_ "

" _Right?!"_ the blonde agreed with excitement before toning down his demeanor. "But, you know… not _everybody_ needs to know about it."

"I just hope that those pictures _never_ see the light of day… _ever_." The two shuddered at the thought, though Arnold maintained his for a few seconds longer. Turning to look his way with worry, Gerald crossed his arms over his chest before saying, "You don't happen to have _copies_ of those pictures on _your_ phone, now _do_ you, Arnold?"

Swallowing hard, he merely grimaced while managing, "Well…"

" _Arnold!"_ Gerald shouted while throwing his arms up into the air. "Come _on,_ man! That was like… our _secret_! We don't need to advertise that little experiment."

"It wasn't that bad," Arnold insisted.

"We put on make-up."

"And it looked good,"

"I _know_ that, okay?" Gerald stage-whispered back to his unphased partner-in-crime. "Don't you think I know we looked great? It was disturbing."

"Eh," he sounded while tilting his head back and forth to weigh out his answer before speaking. "I thought it was interesting. Kind of cool, actually. You really didn't think it was fun?"

"Sure, but I'm not _admitting_ that!"

"You might have to, now," Arnold teased while receiving the other end of an intense glare. "Why be ashamed when we looked so good?"

"Because it was _last month_ that we did that," Gerald explained while using his hands to wildly gesture about himself. "Maybe if we were six it would be cute but we're almost six _teen_ now and—"

"And we put on dresses that we found in the crawlspace at the boarding house," Arnold continued to say as Gerald desperately tried to hush him without success, "and then Grandma gave us her make-up which we then used to—"

"Arnold…"

"—make ourselves, as _you_ even described with your _own words_ —"

"C'mon!"

"—as ' _fabulous_.' We were fabulous and we were wearing dresses with make-up on. What's the worst that could happen?" He patiently waited for an answer that never came. After a moment, he gave Gerald an answer of his own. "The worst that happens is Helga finds them, or 'The Giant' leaks them and then everyone can be jealous at how _good_ we looked. I'm not ashamed."

Slowly shaking his head back and forth, Gerald watched Arnold while humming his usual song. "Mm mm _MM_. Arnold, I've said it once, and I'll say it again—"

"I'm a bold kid?" Arnold offered, though it wasn't what had been on his counterpart's mind.

"Nah, we established _that_ a while ago," He said before handing over Helga's phone which he'd been holding since 'The Giant' had returned it to us opened and free from a passcode. "What I was _going_ to say was that this is your dad's fault." Waving a hand over where Arnold stood, he continued while contorting his mouth into a twisted sneer. "All of this? I blame Miles. Dude has _no_ shame and neither do you."

Taking the unlocked phone and easily swiping his way to the 'messages' menu, Arnold let out a single laugh. "I may have no shame about wearing a dress, but I have _plenty_ of other kinds of shame, and those are thanks to myself."

Opening his mouth to argue, Gerald stopped when he saw his friend's fingers begin tapping away on the screen. "What are… what are you _doing?_ "

"I'm texting Helga," he responded, then paused to look up and out thoughtfully while musing to himself, "Well, I guess I'm texting _me,_ but, you know…" Arnold's voice trailed off as his attention returned to the message he had been feverishly typing.

" _Why_?" Gerald asked. "I thought we were going to explore the inner workings of Helga G. Pataki's _mind_!"

"Maybe that's what _you_ would do," Arnold retorted before hitting the send button and lowering the phone altogether. "I told myself that the _only_ way I would go through with this was that when the phone was unlocked, I would text Helga so we could arrange a switch. That's all."

"Okay, so what did you text her?"

_**Helga:** _

_I know you have my phone, Helga. And I know you're probably reading this right now. Guess I'll find out in a minute when the 'read' receipt comes back._

"Would you look at that," Helga remarked, "he just has me labeled by my first name in here. The only other contact like that is Gerald's. And his parents, I guess."

"You already looked through his contacts?" Phoebe asked while looking over at the screen she'd helped to unlock.

" _Doi_ ," was all she said before beginning her own message to send back to the name she recognized as her own. All the while, she imagined Arnold receiving her text and smiling that dopey grin at the words she'd carefully typed.

 _**Footballhead** _ **:**

_Took you long enough to get into my phone. Geez, Arnoldo. I take it your giant-head didn't come with an equally giant-in-size and freakishly-shaped brain, now did it?_

"That Helga," Gerald commented while looking over Arnold's shoulder as he began wording his reply. "Always the clever one, isn't she."

"Always," Arnold affirmed before tapping send once again; the two-minute warning bell resounding through the 100 wing that the two still lingered in.

_**Helga:** _

_No such luck, I'm afraid. But how do I know that you unlocked MY phone before I unlocked yours? After all, it was ME who texted YOU._

DING. DING. DING. DING.

"Two minutes," Helga noted while looking up to the air above her as if the noise had come out of the atmosphere rather than the speakers in the hallway. "We don't have to switch back yet…"

"Why wouldn't you want to get your phone back? I thought you didn't want Arnold looking through your things."

Helga's fingers danced across the keyboard of the screen as her body instinctively began walking towards the destination of her next class. "Because, Pheebs, he's already _in_ ," she clarified before hitting 'send' and sliding the phone safely into the pocket of her sweatshirt. "Now, we're just playing a little game."

"And where does that game end?" Phoebe probed as they took off down the hallway towards the end of the wing where the science rooms were located.

"I'm not sure yet," she responded just as they passed the threshold of their biology classroom. "Probably in us switching our phones back and going our merry way. Maybe."

"Maybe?"

_**Footballhead:** _

_You may have texted me first, Hair Boy, but that doesn't mean I didn't have PLENTY of time to peruse your contact list, messages, emails, and of course, your many, MANY pictures._

Both Gerald and Arnold widened their eyes at the message that stared back at them from the bright light of Helga's phone.

"So, that's it," Gerald stated in defeat. "We're officially _screwed_."

"She's bluffing," Arnold immediately announced before zealously concocting his next message. "If she got into my phone, she got into it because of Phoebe, right?"

"Probably, yeah. Why?"

"If she got in because of her," he theorized, "then that means she's _with_ Phoebe."

"So?"

" _So,"_ Arnold reiterated, "there is no _way_ that she would let Helga go through my all of my stuff while she's still around." Clicking 'send' with a light tap of his fingertip, he added, "I think I can keep her distracted through the next couple hours until school is over."

"Why wait until school's done?" his childhood companion wondered. "You two can switch phones back after this period is over, no harm, no fowl! Why wouldn't you do it right away?"

"Because," his words were slick with amusement at the question, "I'm kind of enjoying this."

"En _joying_ it? What are you, _crazy_ , Arnold?!" Gerald practically shouted as they started on their way to the period that they may be late to after all, though Arnold hardly seemed to care anymore, despite the constant warning from his friend. "You're playing with fire, man!"

"Not _fire_ , Gerald… only Helga."

"Which is _worse_ ," he argued; Arnold instantaneously disagreeing.

"It's all going to be fine, Gerald, I promise," he tried to reassure with a confident upturn of his lips and a light pat on the back. "Trust me."

And so began the exchange of a century.

* * *

_**Helga:** _

_I don't have anything to hide, Helga. If you want to go hunting through my phone for some kind of blackmail-material, you won't find anything._

She stared at the words of Arnold's latest message that shone from under the table she sat at in the back corner of her biology class.

_**Footballhead:** _

_Who's to say that I haven't already FOUND all of your dirty little secrets and am currently planning to expose you for the weird, football-faced dingus that you are?_

Arnold suppressed a laugh before replying while typing with one hand at his side and out of his teacher's sight.

_**Helga:** _

_I have nothing to be ashamed of that you can find on that phone, Helga. The things I'm ashamed of are words that were never said and feelings I never acted on._

Mouth agape, Helga fought the urge to let out a loud gasp in reaction to the words Arnold had so boldly sent across the airwaves.

_**Footballhead:** _

_And what words and feelings might those be, exactly?_

A half-smile curled up at the corner of Arnold's mouth. This was his chance to use an inconvenience as a blessing—a way to reach out to Helga by using the only means that she seemed to understand: written word.

_**Helga:** _

_You know._

"Two words?" Helga muttered to herself as she finally was able to read the message that she'd had to ignore for nearly thirty minutes to do some lame science experiment. The bell would ring any minute and she would be free to roam the halls with Arnold's phone still in tow.

_**Footballhead:** _

_Why no, genius, I DON'T know. Why don't you and your dumb head enlighten me?_

Walking slowly out of his class at the bell's chime, Arnold seized his moment in the back and forth he'd been enjoying—a back and forth that he knew _Helga_ was enjoying, too.

_**Helga:** _

_I guess I could do that. Only on one condition, though._

_**Footballhead:** _

_Name your price._

Helga watched the bubble on the message screen appear and disappear rapidly as Arnold worked out the perfect reply. Her hands sweating, Arnold's phone became slippery no matter how tightly she held onto it, and she waited with bated breath until his message at last appeared on the screen.

_**Helga:** _

_Slausen's. Today, after school. You can even order whatever you want._

It was Arnold's turn to wait anxiously as Helga typed her reply, though she didn't make him wait quite as long for a response.

_**Footballhead:** _

_And what is it that YOU happen to be getting out of this little, late-afternoon ice cream social? Besides your phone, that is._

Trying to hide his growing smile, Arnold knew exactly what it was he wanted to say next.

_**Helga:** _

_I get the chance at trapping you in an honest conversation with the bait of free food. You get to eat, and I get to tell you how I feel and HAVE felt since that Summer of 6_ _th_ _grade when we grew apart._

Chewing on her lip, Helga debated her next choice of words before sending one more question that she knew she wouldn't be getting an answer for. At least not by way of text.

Even so, she knew that she had to try.

_**Footballhead:** _

_Just how was it that we grew apart? Why DID you stop talking to me? Did I scare you off?_

Sighing at the words he knew Helga had struggled to successfully send, Arnold decided to give her just enough information that it would only make her want more.

_**Helga:** _

_Absolutely not. It was ME who scared MYSELF off. I chickened out._

Intrigued by his vague explanation, Helga wasted no time in answering.

_**Footballhead:** _

_Why?_

The one word that Helga had sent brought butterflies along with it. They gathered inside of Arnold's stomach to flurry and flutter in circles as he sent her what he hoped would be an invite she would finally accept.

_**Helga:** _

_Meet me at Slausen's after school and I'll tell you._

Before she could tell him that she was interested in his proposition, another message popped up on the screen.

_**Helga:** _

_And make sure you bring my phone. As fun as this has been, we should probably switch back before we go home for the night. What do you say?_

The 'typing' bubble didn't have to float for long before Arnold received Helga's reply; the message once again containing only one word.

_**Footballhead:** _

_Deal._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I worked very, very, VERY hard on this prompt, like all day long, so please, PLEASE be sure to let me know what you think of it! I can't wait to hear your opinions.


	5. Pinky Swear

**SHORTAKI WEEK, DAY 5**

_**Pinky Swear** _

* * *

There is nothing in the world more important than a promise—especially a _silent_ promise.

In fact, the quieter a promise is, the more significant it becomes; an invisible vow that one must actively search for rather than simply be told. The very existence of it depends on the observer and _not_ the one doling out their wordless pledge of love to which true affection is birthed.

So was the case for Arnold Shortman and his wife, Mrs. Helga G. Shortman-Pataki.

From the moment of their third date after their fifth attempt at dating one another during their first year of college, Arnold and Helga's pinkies were intertwined. Just as the pair's lives had been woven together like the colorful fabrics of a beautifully braided tapestry, the linking of their pinkies was instinctual, habitual, and comforting.

What had once seemed cheesy to the fated couple instead became second nature—an action that was uniquely their own. By following their unspoken rule of hooking their pinkies as they walked, they separated themselves from their peers who merely held hands like the countless other ordinary people of the world.

There was something _special_ about their shared gesture.

It was their own act of adoration that became their silent promise; even more so than the wedding rings they now wore on their fingers. This was their constant reminder that they would never walk alone, that they would never be without the other, and that they would never forget where they once started.

It seemed like lifetimes ago that they were on that third date together in their Freshmen year away at college. It felt like centuries further that Arnold had met his lips with Helga's for a final 'first kiss' of their renewed relationship—one that would eventually culminate in their union. To the now happily married pair, it was as if they had resumed their relationship for the last time in another universe entirely. Theirs was a universe where the very existence of themselves appeared to hang on the success of their partnership.

And it was _that_ for which their silent pinky promise was a testament to. It was for those even _younger_ fools who, throughout each year of their lives, had somehow managed to leave and find their way back to one another an immeasurable amount of times and in a myriad of different forms. Their love was an affair that spanned decades; even as it shifted and morphed through each calamity that life threw their way.

Their very souls, like their pinkies, were made to forever be interlocked—just like a key in a door or the last piece placed in a puzzle. The energy they emitted individually was the place the other called 'home,' and with each connection their littlest digits made, Arnold and Helga felt complete.

Through this motion, they told each other that they would choose them every time, every day, for the rest of their lives. It was a pinky swear that, so long as they both inhabited the world, they would always be linked.

Forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this little drabble! It actually took a pretty long time as i wanted to convey, as poetically as possible, a rather simple idea in a somewhat-complicated way. Idk if it came across as anything other than a few paragraphs of hot garbage, but I hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> Please let me know what you think  
> xo


	6. Harmonica

**SHORTAKI WEEK, DAY 6**

_**Harmonica** _

* * *

Every year during the second weekend of July, Arnold and I, plus Gerald and Phoebe go camping. It's been this way since our Junior year of college. What began as a fun way to make sure we all still saw each other has turned into a tradition that we have been doing regularly for _years._

Well, right after we had Phillip, our own slice of Philly, we didn't go as we were new parents and didn't think the great outdoors was exactly the best place for a newborn. Then of course, Phoebe and Gerald had their daughter, Robin who we often referred to as 'Binny,' so we had to push back our camping trip, yet again.

Then three more years passed, and just as we had _finally_ scheduled an official date to resume our annual tradition… I got pregnant again. Between Phillip and Eleanor, it was too hectic to try and continue the tradition, as much as we may want to.

I guess that would mean we haven't exactly been _regular_ with our camping trip.  
At least not for a while, that is.

Fast forward some _more_ and there we were with a wickedly-smart yet somewhat shy ten-year-old boy, and a feisty seven-year-old girl who refuses to stick to the norm. As Binny was just one year behind Phillip, we thought that these ages were appropriate enough to take camping with us.

And thus, our tradition picked back up.

As the children ran around the campground laughing, shrieking, and playing whatever game it was that they'd invented, the four of us would catch up while raising our tents and unpacking other necessities. Taking turns keeping a watchful eye on our three wild spawn, day one of our first family camping trip was an utter success. Sure, the kids ended up whining about various things over the course of the weekend, and Eleanor had _quite_ the tantrum at breakfast the second day, but _overall_ , the trip had proven to be fun for _everyone_.

So, we kept doing it.

Year after year, we'd gather at our campsite and watch as our children grew before our eyes while we stayed relatively the same. Phoebe's job remained hectic, and Gerald's business was _still_ booming, even while he played the role of stay-at-home dad. As for Arnold and I, my writing job allowed me to stay at home most of the time which was nice for the kids. The clinic kept Arnold busy—his years of hard work paying off with each new case he took on.

The way he took such great care of both _our_ children as well as others never stopped astounding me. Between being a child-psychologist and a father, Arnold was a freakin' _saint._

Needless to say, with the consistency of our collectively consistent-yet-crazy lives, _all_ of us (including our children) looked forward to our Summer trip— _nobody_ looking forward to it more than my loveable footballhead.

Seeing Arnold play with our kids and engage in conversations within our own little environment always brought back fond memories from our childhood of long ago. Every now and then, I'd see that familiar sparkle in his emerald eyes, telling me that he too was remembering these moments—the moments which brought back the dreamy, imaginative boy that I'd fallen in love with and actively saw in both of our children.

And nothing brought back that childlike wonder in him like when he and Gerald gave their first-night concert around the fire.

Our children would watch their dads in awe as Arnold played the harmonica and Gerald did drums. All day long the kids would look for various objects to present to him with in order to make fun and creative beats for the music they made. It seemed that even though they'd grown up into two of the best men the world could conjure, Arnoldo and Tall Hair Boy remained just as inseparable as they were when _we_ were kids.

Together on that first night of each camping trip we held, the two played music long past bedtime and well into the morning. It was almost as though the music they made transported them back to a time before children, careers, and all the other nonsense that life throws at you. When those two played their music, they were just two teenage boys again; performing their hearts out for an audience of people that watched with adoration and amazement at their talents.

" _I can't believe these dinguses think they're any good," I leaned over to tell Phoebe from where sat around the firepit atop the boarding house's roof. "Gerald isn't even_ playing _anything!"_

" _Maybe not in the same sense that Arnold is playing an instrument," Phoebe soon told me while keeping her eyes locked on the object of her own affection. "However, to keep a rhythm in the style of which he is maintaining is something that is…" she swallowed what was probably a swoon similar to the ones I was prone to. "Well, it is something to be revered."_

" _I mean I_ guess _," I replied while returning my eyes to Arnold as he continued without hesitation on blowing air through the harmonica; the notes emitting from it moving as though they were dancing through the mild chill of the summer-evening air._

_With adulation, I watched him, my own football-headed maestro. I watched as his eyes kept tightly shut while he moved in time with the music he created. He was lost in the melody; lost in the sea of sounds that made up the song his harmonica sang to me._

_To me._

_For me._

_His always loving, eternally worshiping soulmate._

_Even if he didn't know that quite yet._

Just as he always had, Arnold swayed in time with the music he made—each change in the melody serving to take us back to the night I always recalled with these concerts. Again, his eyes stayed shut as he tuned the world out to perform for us just as he had all of those years ago form atop the Sunset Arms boarding house.

And just as I had on that night and every night since, I watched him.

Always loving.

Eternally worshiping the man who was our children's father, Gerald's best friend, and the same football-headed dweeb that had managed to love me back all of those years ago.

We were just two soulmates, swimming together in the symphony of sound he conducted with the delicate blow of air through his harmonica. It was in those moments that I truly loved Arnold the most—the moments when he was just that kid on that rooftop.

My own, and our _children's_ own, football-headed maestro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, i had such great ideas for this but i didn't have tons of time to do it so... this is what you get. I'm sorry if it isn't as great, i feel like this may be my weakest contribution for shortaki week, but i tried! Hopefully you liked it regardless.
> 
> Please let me know what you think!  
> xo


	7. Marriage

**SHORTAKI WEEK, DAY 7**

_**Marriage** _

* * *

_What's in name?_

Lifetimes ago, I delivered this line from onstage after having crammed it into my head in a matter of hours beforehand. At the time, the words hadn't meant much to me; the concept lost on a tired girl with dreams of kissing the love of her life no matter how many lines I had to memorize or classmates I had to scare off just to do so.

Nowadays, I can kiss that football-headed dork any old time I feel like it. I guess that's one of the benefits of marrying the person you're madly in love with: kissing privileges. Each and every time our lips met, shivers went up my spine and proceeded to send shockwaves of electricity coursing through my veins. Arnold's lips were my second home; his arms that of my first. With him at my side encouraging me forward, there was _nothing_ that I couldn't do and _nothing_ that I couldn't conquer.

Well, _almost_ nothing… there was still the matter of _my_ name.

What was once a badge of honor that I wore proudly and spoke of often had now become a stamp of shame. I dragged my name around, signing it when appropriate and speaking it only when necessary. There had _always_ been connotations with my last name and things that I didn't appreciate being constantly reminded of AKA my stupid-perfect sister.

But something _funny_ happened when Olga got married during my sophomore year of high school. I remember her walking out to show me and the other bridesmaids the wedding dress she'd chosen. It had been an A-Line dress—real classy looking, old-fashioned-esque, but with a flair of lace that somehow made the blue of her eyes pop.

My sister looked _stunning_.

Part of me hated that. It was that part that had always dictated the complicated relationship the two of us shared, and in that moment, it did the same thing it always did. My blood began to race through me—a rage I'd come to know all-too-well filling me up with hostility and envy. Olga Pataki. Olga _freakin'_ Pataki. She was always beautiful, always wanted, and always the one who got to live her life _proud_ of the Pataki namesake.

After all, it was practically _her_ who made it even _halfway_ decent to live with. It certainly hadn't been our blowhard dad or our recently sobered mother. It had been Olga, always Olga, who brought pride to the Pataki name. That was probably why I was completely shocked when she told me she couldn't wait to change it.

" _Wait, you're actually_ excited _to change your name?" I asked her as her other bridesmaids primped and fluffed out the dress she stared at in the mirror._

_Glancing up from her own image, her eyes locked with mine from the reflective glass ahead of her. "Well, of course, silly! I've been waiting to be Mrs. Olga Reid for what feels like forever."_

" _But…_ why _?" I pressed while remaining in my seat with my arms tightly crossed over my chest. "I'd think that you'd want to keep that little gem, or at least_ hyphenate _it or something."_

_Turning around on the pedestal she stood atop of, Olga faced me with a confused expression lining her perfectly-made-up features. "What would I do that for?"_

_Sighing in dramatic fashion, I dropped my head back in irritation while keeping my arms folding securely. "Criminy, Olga. For someone so smart, why am_ I _the one who has to explain everything?" Tilting my head back up to look at her again, I shrugged my shoulders and said in a snide tone, "I guess I just figured that after all of those awards, scholarships, published dissertations, and whatever other nonsense your name is attached to… I figured you wouldn't want to erase that."_

" _How is my getting married and taking Joseph's last name erasing all of that?"_

" _I don't know," I muttered with another shrug of my shoulders. "You were the infamous, 'Olga Pataki.' Every teacher's favorite student. Everybody's best friend or personal mentor. Dad's winner—his freakin'_ champion _. Honestly, I'm shocked that he's even letting you_ consider _dropping the Pataki name."_

" _Our father has no say in my choices, Helga," Olga calmly told me from where she stayed standing on the platform. "And even if he_ did, _I would still choose to take Joseph's name."_

" _Why, cause you're in_ love _?" I retorted with a scoff._

" _Yes, I am in love with Joseph. Very much so," she responded before letting out a soft and controlled breath. "But also, because… well, I suppose you_ are _sort of right. I_ am _happy to be erasing the girl I once was and replacing her with the woman I am now."_

_The five other women in the room shared a look with one another before returning their eyes to Olga and me. They took turns watching us as Olga stepped off the podium while carefully hiking up the sides of her dress so she could walk towards me. Following behind her, they helped move the train of her dress so she could take a seat at my side on the couch that I'd been stubbornly sitting at for the past two hours._

" _What," I demanded rather then questioned as she looked at me with sad eyes. "So, I was right. Why are you sitting down like you're going to give me some long, and incredibly annoying big-sister speech? I don't want that."_

" _Well, too bad, baby sis. You're getting on anyway," she insisted before turning over her shoulder to send a smile and a wave to our five onlookers. Taking the hint, each of them filed out of the dressing room we sat in, now alone._

 _Eyeing them as they left us, I waited for Olga to begin talking the moment the door shut. Oddly enough, she didn't speak a word. She just_ stared _at me as if waiting for_ me _to begin the speech that_ she _had insisted on giving to_ me _._

" _Aren't you going to start spewing off your stupid, sappy soliloquy, already?" The words came out of me sourly, though Olga didn't even flinch. I imagined that by now, she was pretty used to my high levels of cynicism and wit. "Not that I'm interested in hearing it, I just figured we should get this over with already. I don't want to miss my re-runs of old Wrestlemanias that I've seen a hundred times. Lord only knows that those are_ way _more important than whatever it is_ you're _going to go off ranting about."_

" _So angry," Olga noted with a sad smile before reaching out to tuck a loose strand of my hair behind my ear as I gave her the best stink-eye I could manage. "I used to be angry like you." Breathing out a heavy sigh, she shook her head. "I never had the guts to show it like you always have, but I remember being angry like you."_

" _Angry?_ You? _!" I was flabbergasted and laughed in her face with utter disbelief. "Since when have_ you, _the Perfect-Pataki, ever been_ angry _about_ anything EVER? _"_

" _Oh, Helga. I've been angry plenty of times," she told me without hesitation. "But with Joseph… I'm not so angry anymore."_

" _What could you have ever been_ angry _about, Olga?" I ordered; my tone changing from agitation to rage. "What could have_ possibly _been something that pissed you off? Was it the countless trophies? The constant attention from Mom and Dad? The compliments or the hordes of friends or the infamous notoriety? Or… is it the way that practically every single person who has ever come into contact with you bows to kiss your freakin' feet?"_

" _Yes," she answered after a moment of thought. "All of that. It made me angry. Furious, even."_

 _At her response, I scoffed and donned a humorless smile. "Right. Well. It sure sounds_ _like all of that must have just_ sucked _for you. My sincerest apologies on your incredibly tough life."_

" _Helga," Olga repeated my name, "I know that to you these things seem silly to be angry about. Especially considering the life you had to live under my shadow."_

" _Thanks for that reminder there, Olga," I grumbled while turning to look away from her and focus my attention on the corner of the room where the ceiling and the walls met. "As if I didn't already_ know _that, but hey. Who knows the shadow you cast better than you, am I right?"_

" _I know you're being sarcastic right now, and I don't fault you for going back to that defense mechanism of yours," she explained, turning into the shrink that she was to psycho-analyze my behavior. "But you have to believe me when I tell you how sorry I am that you had to live like that. As much as my name followed you around, it followed me around worse because it_ was _me. I couldn't hide in the shadow and do great things that_ I _wanted to do. In that respect, you've always been so lucky."_

" _Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," I sputtered out while resuming my attention on Olga and letting my arms drop to my sides as I spoke. "Why on_ earth _would you want to live in your own shadow? You_ literally _just said that you know how much it sucks."_

" _You've always been so creative," Olga spoke in a soft voice, her thoughts recalling a feeling that I couldn't quite place as a warm smile spread across her lips. "Poetry. Stories. That time that you portrayed Juliet in the school play—"_

" _I was_ nine, _Olga," I emphasized while giving her a flat look. "It was an elementary school rendition of Romeo and Juliet. For cripes sake, you act like I gave some Tony-award-winning performance or something."_

" _The point is, Helga, you were_ able _to do all of those things," she digressed. "You were able to try new things and, even though you always excelled in them, you didn't_ have _to. From the safety of my shadow, you were allowed to find who you were and for_ that _, I am so incredibly happy. I have the highest hopes for what you'll achieve one day because of those opportunities."_

" _Like it will ever be as great as some stinkin' doctorate degree and the tons of different things that you've had published in those fancy psychology books and magazines dad's been adding to his shrine of you."_

 _Olga frowned at my comment, though continued on. "Maybe to_ you _or to daddy, but not to me." She paused for an instant before adding, "And mom. She's been doing so much better and I_ know _how proud she is of you."_

" _Yeah, yeah, yeah," I dismissed her statements with ease. "In_ your opinion, _I'm absolutely_ fantastic _. I guess that means I should be pretty stoked since it's coming from you. What was the point of this conversation again? You've lost my interest."_

 _Taking both of my hands in hers, Olga forced me to look her in the eye as she continued with her speech. "What I'm trying to say is that… our name, the name that you think I am so proud of is the very thing that weighs me down. I often wonder what I could have become had I been given room to explore my_ own _interests rather than collecting memorabilia for daddy."_

_Unsure of what to say, I moved my gaze from her eyes down to where she firmly held my hands. Chewing on my lip, I waited for her to either say more or finally free me from her grip. At the sound of her sniffles, I knew immediately that she had additional material that she was ready to lay on me with help from the mascara rivers that I'd become so accustomed to witnessing mid-big-sister-pep-talk._

_Hoping I could end this before it began, I tried to stop what I knew was on the way. "Olga, c'mon. Don't go giving me the waterworks, here…"_

" _I can't help it," she cried out while gently rubbing my hands with her thumbs as she started to sob. "All I want is…is for you to be… to be_ so happy _, baby sister."_

" _I know, okay? But—" I tried yet again, though she didn't let me get out a word in edgewise._

" _One day… one day, I hope… I hope…" she sniffled again while releasing one of my hands to reach up and wipe away some of the tears that had begun their decent down her cheeks. "I hope that you'll see… you'll realize what a-a… a_ blessing _it is to erase… erase… erase the person you were and start again. You-You deserve that, Helga."_

" _Jeez, Olga, it's just a name, already," I said with a roll of my eyes. "I was just making a comment, you didn't have to get all… all_ weepy _on me about it."_

Of course, at the time, I didn't understand the power that a name-change could have on someone with as many hidden issues as Olga. Together, her and Joey-boy (my fond nickname for her husband) had saved enough money from their jobs that they'd already _left_ them. As far as I knew, they were off helping kids in some third-world country, but there was something different about Olga when they departed for their five-year mission, two years ago.

She seemed at _peace_. Life as Joseph and Olga Reid had blessed her with the opportunities to erase herself from the narrative my father had started writing for her since her birth. This time, she was able to write her _own_ story and pen it with the name of her one true love.

I couldn't _wait_ to do the same.

"Man, I tell you what, Arnold… I cannot _wait_ to get rid of this _stupid_ name already and take yours," I told him as we sat on our couch eating the Chinese take-out he'd picked up for us on his way home from work. "The day I become a 'Shortman' is the day my life can finally _start_."

Chewing thoughtfully, Arnold looked at me as though inspecting every inch of me from the inside out. If that makes sense. After swallowing his bite, he watched me for a little while longer before finally talking. "It's just a name, Helga," he decided on before fishing out another one of his sweet n' sour chicken and popping it into his mouth. "I don't know why you think it's going to change anything other than your signature."

"Oh, it _will_ , footballhead. Just you wait and see," I told him confidently, though he didn't buy into my reasoning. In fact, he wanted an explanation of it.

"But why?" He asked while furrowing his brow and soon swallowing his food. Setting the take-out container down to rest on his lap, he twisted his body so he could face me more directly. "What do you think is going to happen?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly while looking ahead at the television show we had on for background noise rather than content. "I guess I just figure it's going to do _something_ like how it did for Olga. Maybe it'll be cathartic or something." I offered him a lackluster shrug while digging my chopsticks into the container of the fried dumplings I was working on.

"You really think it's going to affect you the way it did your sister?" Arnold wondered while keeping his eyes on me as I picked up a dumpling and tossed it into my mouth.

Turning my head to look over at him briefly, I left his eyes to look ahead at the screen of our TV without any intention of actively paying attention to it. "Maybe," I responded through my chews. "At the very least, it'll let me forget that sad, pathetic little girl of my past. Give me some peace-of-mind and the chance to move forward with _our_ lives."

"Oh," was all Arnold said, and I dropped my arm that still held my chopsticks to my side in exasperation.

"What?" I spat out while shooting my fiancée a look of frustration. "You don't think it will be good for me to erase that part of my life? Erase all of the things that made me so angry and bitter in the first place? I thought that might be something you and that head of yours might be interested in."

"I'm interested," he intoned before leaving my eyes to look down at his _own_ container of food. "I just don't think it does any good to try and erase something like who you were—who you still are."

"You can't tell me that you still think I'm that bully who hides her feelings because she's too afraid of the consequences of acting on them." At my statement, Arnold remained silent and I stared at him incredulously. "Arnold. I'm _not_ that girl anymore. Criminy, why would you ask me to _marry you_ if you thought that I still was?"

"Helga, you don't have to _actively_ be that person to still _be_ her," he told me and I laughed outright at his ridiculous and completely batshit notion.

"As if _that_ makes any sense, _Arnoldo_."

"Think about it," he continued while looking in my direction as I averted my eyes from his. "You still call me football-head and Hair Boy and all of the other nicknames you gave me back in elementary school. Don't you? I mean, you just did, right?"

"What's your point," I replied flatly.

" _My point is_ …" he emphasized as if the nature of his tone would alleviate some of the attitude I'd picked up as our conversation had progressed. "You obviouslystill see _me_ as that dense kid from our youth. To you, I'm still just that freaky-headed-kid who couldn't see the amazing, beautiful, incredibly smart and talented—albeit hurt—little girl with the pink bow who was right in front of me."

"Yeah, well…" I couldn't dispute his argument. Instead, I chose to accept it and attempt to deliver a satisfactory answer that might end this little disagreement. "Your head _still_ is enormous _and_ weirdly shaped… so…"

"You know that's not what I'm saying, Helga."

Huffing out a breath, I raised my chopsticks to dig around in my container for another dumpling. "Then how about you drop the act and just come out and say what you want to say instead of making me _guess_ all the _damn_ time. Criminy! I mean, you've been giving me this whole, righteously noble, 'after school special' routine since we were _kids_. Just say what you're thinking!"

"Fine," he said with simplicity. "I think that _you_ think changing your name is going to give you this life and this family that you _think_ is going to get rid of all the demons that live inside of you… but it's not going to."

"Newsflash, Hair Boy! You already _told_ me all of that like _ten minutes ago_ ," I exclaimed with a shake of my head and a wave of the dumpling being held by my chopsticks. Biting the dumpling in half, I chewed it for a moment before soon swallowing and saying, "And besides. You don't _know_ what 'demons' I have, you know why?"

"Why?" He asked as I'd instructed, though I knew he was merely humoring me.

Glowering at him, I said, "Because I don't _have_ those demons anymore, okay? Years of therapy and not having to talk to Bob every day of my natural born life has done _wonders_ for me." Softening my voice, I then added, "Plus your uh… your family helped a lot too. Your parents and stuff. Granparents. You know."

"I _know_ ," he reiterated with a knowing look that I didn't appreciate. "And be _cause_ I know, I _also_ know that you're projecting my family onto you like it'll cover up everything bad that happened to you, but do _you_ want to know something?"

Finishing the remainder of my dumpling, I gave a half-hearted reply. "Sure, Arnold. Blow my mind with your sage wisdom."

Ignoring my sarcasm, he pressed onward. "All of those bad things that happened to you, as horrible as they were… they made you, _you_."

Moving to set my food down on the coffee table ahead of us, I balanced my chopsticks on the top of the container. Sucking in a deep breath, I then twisted my body to face Arnold while pulling my leg up to rest on the side of the couch in an effort towards looking at him straight-on. "Alright, Arnold. You have my attention. Go ahead. Explain how it is that my shitty life has helped me."

"I didn't say it helped you," he clarified before continuing. "What I _am_ saying is that if it weren't for those things happening to you, you wouldn't have your humor, for instance. That quick-wit, while sometimes hurtful, is one of the things I love most about you. You've always had this ability to say and point out the cleverest things."

"So?"

"So," Arnold went on, "I don't think that you would have that if you hadn't gone through such hardship. You wouldn't have had to develop that skill or to even _use_ it. There'd be no need."

"There's tons of clever people in this world, you know," I pointed out. "And I'd be willing to bet that they all had fairly normal lives compared to mine. Keep on guessing there, Hair Boy."

"What about your writing?" He offered. "Being introspective and creative like that often stems from a difficult life of having to fend for yourself. You can't deny that."

"I mean, I could, I can, and I will," I said sternly. "One. I've _always_ been a good writer, okay? I didn't need life to take a shit on me for that to happen. Two. Yet again, there are _countless_ creative imbeciles walking the planet, so unfortunately, I won't be accepting that answer."

"Fine, then, Helga. But let me offer you _one more_ example," he asserted before setting his food down beside mine on the coffee table. " _One more,_ and then if you _still_ don't agree, then I'll drop it and we never have to talk about this name thing again. Okay? Can you agree to that?"

"Sure, I can agree to that," I accepted with a smirk. "Whatchya got? It had better be a good one this time."

Arnold hesitated as if to build the suspense for another one of his supposedly 'concrete points.' I didn't have much faith that what he was going to say would alter my views on my life or my name-change for our impending nuptials. Despite my lack of confidence in whatever this next claim would be, I patiently waited for him to speak so we could get on with our dinner, our night, and our lives.

"What about me?" he finally said, and I looked at him with a baffled expression painted over my face.

"What _about_ you?" I repeated, completely missing the point he was trying to make.

"You've always talked about the day we first met, the day at the pre-school when I held the umbrella over your—"

"Yeah, Arnold, I _know_ what you're referencing," I spat out almost angrily.

Pausing to let me cool down, he then said, "You claim that it was _that day_ that you fell in love with me. Right?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Why?"

I watched him cautiously while trying to keep a poker-face. "What do you mean, _why_ , you _know_ why."

It was Arnold's turn to shrug his shoulders. "Why?" He repeated without much inflection. "What did I do that made you feel that way? I wasn't anybody special. You didn't even know me. What could I have done that warranted such strong affections—and from a toddler at that?"

Well. I had not been expecting _this_.

Arnold was making a solid case and I knew where he was headed with it, too.

As I allowed each of his words the chance to soak in, I struggled to find a good enough clapback that would force Arnold to backtrack and say he didn't know what he was talking about. I wanted _so badly_ for him to say those words, but I knew he wouldn't—at least not tonight. He was absolutely right, and he _knew_ it. Hell, even _I_ knew it… I just wasn't ready to admit it.

Opening my mouth to speak, nothing left my lips but empty air. I had nothing.

Realizing that I was about ready to tap out, Arnold chose to answer his own question on my behalf. "You developed feelings for me because you were a frightened little girl who hadn't been shown much kindness before. It was _because_ of those vulnerabilities that you latched onto me so hard and set forth the series of events that led to where we are now."

I stayed speechless as my eyes kept themselves glued to Arnold's. Pressing my lips into a hard line, I refused to respond to what he was saying even though we both knew that I agreed. Arnold knew me, knew me better than I knew _myself,_ obviously.

"So, I argue, that if it hadn't been for the tough aspects of your life, you would not be the person you are today. You wouldn't have appreciated my kindness the way you did." He reached out to pick up his food once again and focused on picking up another piece of his chicken with his chopsticks. "For all you know, if you'd been showered with love and attention say, like your sister had, you might have turned out more like her than you care to admit."

"Now hold it right there, football-head—" I began, and Arnold was quick to stop me before I could really start in on him.

"It is _because of that_ , because of those demons you want to just dismiss, that I don't think changing your name is going to do for you what it did for Olga," he stated firmly and with sincere honesty. "Face it, Helga. You don't _need_ to erase who you were and start over because who you were is what brought you all of the things you have now—including me. Olga needed to separate herself from that name because it was all she had ever been known for. You?" He let out a sigh before continuing. "I think, if anything, you need to _keep_ your name."

"You want me to _keep_ my name?" I asked skeptically.

"Not necessarily, no." He thought hard for a good minute before speaking his next few sentences thoughtfully and with great care. "I wonder if keeping your name, really reclaiming it for yourself, might help you to be proud of yourself because of who you were and what you went through in order to become who you are _now_. Does that make sense?"

Nodding my head minimally, I quietly muttered, "Maybe, yeah."

"I mean, we're getting married, right?" He went on, and I raised a brow at his super obvious statement. "But the whole name change thing… that's just an old and tired tradition that doesn't mean anything anymore—"

"It means something to _me_ ," I countered. "Arnold, I've _always_ wanted to be yours. All yours. Having your name and being part of your family has been my dream since… well, since _forever_ , practically."

"I know that," he affirmed before giving me his next thought to mull over. "But if we're getting married, merging our lives together for one that is uniquely ours… maybe we should really get _married_."

"Now you've lost me," I said while feeding myself another dumpling and chewing it as he delivered his thought more descriptively.

"Isn't marriage blending two families together?" Arnold questioned me, and I nodded with a slight shrug. "So, why don't we blend our families together? Why don't we take each other's last names?"

"You want to be Arnold Pataki? Arnold Shortman-Pataki? Arnold Pataki-Shortman?" I laughed at the combinations I gave him, only to stop as he confirmed what I thought was a joke.

"Yeah. I can be Arnold Pataki-Shortman, and you can be Helga Shortman-Pataki. That way we're still keeping our last names but marrying them."

I couldn't help but continue my chuckling at his inane idea. "And you don't think that would get confusing when we have kids who have to take our names? I mean, what are we going to name them? Freddy Shortman-Pataki-Pataki-Shortman? That's a little insane, Arnold. Even for you."

"So, then I'll just take your name. I can be Arnold Shortman-Pataki."

"That's weird," I replied with a grimace at the sound of it. "I don't like that at all."

"Arnold Pataki-Shortman?" He suggested and I allowed the proposed name to echo a few times from the inside of my mind.

"I don't know…" I finally commented after being lost in my thoughts. "That would make me Helga Pataki-Shortman then, wouldn't it?"

"If you don't want to have a really confusing last name for our kids, then yeah."

I thought about this for a long time before repeating my potential name one more time. "Helga Pataki-Shortman, huh?"

"Helga _G._ Pataki-Shortman," Arnold refined the name with ease and a mischievous grin. "Even you have to admit that Helga G. Pataki-Shortman packs a pretty nice punch."

Smirking at his words, I returned his smile. "You do have a point there, Hair Boy. Helga G. Pataki-Shortman gives off that whole… badass partner-in-crime vibe."

"It should, shouldn't it?" He questioned without giving me the chance to answer. "Together we're better than we ever were separately. We should celebrate that. Loudly and proudly."

Just like that, Arnold had once again saved me from myself. By some miracle, he'd dug so deep inside of me that he managed to yank out the sweet and smooth truffle-like goodness I would never have seen if he hadn't seen it first.

Arnold saw the silver lining of the dark and stormy clouds that made up my past. He had seen me for all that I was, and just as he always had, he kept those storm clouds at bay from erupting and ruining all that I held dear.

I was going to take Arnold's last name just as I had always wanted to, but I would take it and marry it with my own—marrying every little piece of me, even the broken ones, with the boy of my dreams. By keeping my last name and blending it with Arnold's, him doing the same in return, we were marrying more than just the two boring adults we had grown into. Our wedding would symbolize the union of all that we _were_ , all that we _are_ , and all that we _will_ _be_ in the future. Together, that football-headed dweeb and his bully would unite with the Arnold and Helga of today.

And _that_ was a marriage worth talking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fans of Helga Unbound, you will be pleased to know that this is a plot-point straight out of the future I have planned for that fic. Of course, I'll end up changing things a bit and re-write everything and it'll be different so don't feel like i made you read a spoiler, but this has ALWAYS been a BIG headcanon of mine and I couldn't care less about how many times i write about-- I'll never stop. This is a golden headcanon, imo. 
> 
> Please please PLEASE let me know what you think! Only one more day of this year's Shortaki Week. Hopefully I've done you all proud and these can tide you over until I update Helga Unbound again which, I GUARANTEE, will be at the latest in Mid-August. I have great things planned, so don't give up on me yet ;) 
> 
> See you all tomorrow for Creator's Choice!


	8. CREATOR'S CHOICE: Dreams

**SHORTAKI WEEK, DAY 8**

_**Creator's Choice:** _

_**DREAMS** _

_**A songfic based on the song 'Everything I Wanted' by Billie Eilish** _

* * *

Dreams.

Each night they took over my mind as I tossed and turned from the safety of my bed. I had tried countless times to remedy the issue—not eating before bedtime, drinking warm milk, meditating… all of it seemed to be in vain though. It was almost like my brain had to remind me of my fears and insecurities in order to punish me for all my wrongdoings from the safety of my slumber. In the world of my dreams, my subconscious _knew_ that I could never escape.

And the worst part?

My dreaming always started out _wonderful._

I was always in the best situations imaginable. My writing had led me to producing countless best-selling novels. I'd traveled the world and seen nearly every corner of it. Sometimes I was elected to government where I made big changes that positively affected the population.

Other times, my environment was different. My parents cared for both me and Olga equally. They supported us in the ways that parents should, rather than pitting their children against each other. My classmates from years ago remembered me fondly, and frequently reached out to see how I was doing and what I was up to. I had hordes of friends and endless streams of people that genuinely cared about me and noticed my existence.

Then, my mind would round a sharp corner and the dream derailed itself entirely.

No matter what my brain conjured for me, it was still _never enough_. Despite the incredibly wonderful things that I imagined from the comforts of my bed, my dream counterpart was never happy. The attention, the money, the fame, the notoriety—all of it eventually faded away into the background. Soon, I was forgotten once more.

My books would drop from the list, or I'd produce a novel that flopped and ruined my reputation.

My account would dry up and I would be unable to travel or do the many things I longed to do.

My place in office would be taken away from me over a scandal that was based on rumor.

My family would become distracted by Olga yet again and they would lose interest in me yet again.

My classmates began caring more about their own lives and ceased to remember me as fondly as they once had.

Every night and in every situation, my dreams turned sour and as hard as I tried to change the plotlines of my inner thoughts, I was never able to do so. It was almost like the _true_ Helga was trapped inside the mind of the _dream_ Helga and as loud as I screamed at her to do something different… she never did. She always ended up somewhere, wildly depressed, and did something foolish.

In those foolish moments, disaster would occur.

I would disappear into the oblivion.

I would be caught in a deadly crash of the airplane I rode.

I would be assassinated while attending a political rally.

I would simply… stop existing.

It was in those shifts of tone that my dreams would then _continue,_ as if I were some freakin' angel watching from above. I would look down at these people who should remember me and care about me…but they never did. As my absence, nobody's world changed, and nobody seemed to notice. No matter how popular I had been, the things I had accomplished, or the people I had positively impacted, I was never remembered.

Nobody even noticed.

As I awoke from every nightmare, I sat up straight in bed while panting as my dream-life flashed before my eyes. With every huff and puff of my labored breathing, Arnold would also wake up from beside me. He wouldn't even stop to rub at his eyes or yawn—he always sat right up with me and wrapped my body securely in his arms.

"Nightmare again?" He would ask, and I would nod my head as he continued to hold me tightly.

However, he never seemed to ask what the dreams were about. It was almost like he either didn't _need_ to know, or he somehow _already_ knew. So, with my latest nightmare, I was utterly surprised that he decided to finally inquire about the night terrors that plagued me.

"What was it about?" He wondered while gently rubbing the skin of my bare shoulder with his thumb.

"My dream?" I clarified while tilting my head slightly to have a better look at him. At the nod of his head, I sighed and returned my gaze out to the pitch black of our bedroom. "It's… it's not important."

"It must be," he countered while lightly resting his chin atop my head. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be having the same dream nearly every night."

"It's never the same," I explained carefully, as though there was danger in telling him the details. "Well, the _picture_ is the usually the same, but the colors are different."

"What do you mean?"

Moving from his embrace to sit up and look over into the shadows that painted over Arnold's features, I tried my best to explain the thought process behind my statement. "It's like… my dreams are this coloring book and every page is the same picture, only… the colors are always changing and so the pictures _look_ different from one another, but in reality, they aren't."

"So, what's the picture?" He proceeded to wonder aloud, and I contorted my face into a nervous grimace at the dark figure facing me.

"I had a dream," I slowly began while choosing each word cautiously, "that I got everything I wanted."

This confused Arnold, as it rightfully should, and I could tell his was wearing that dumb expression of his when he didn't understand what it was that I meant. "If you got everything that you wanted, what makes it so bad that you're always waking up like you do?"

"It's not what you think," I said while turning away to look back out into the night's abyss. "Honestly, they start _out_ as dreams, but they always morph into nightmares." I shrugged my shoulders carelessly before continuing. "Tonight, I was a journalist for National Geographic. My name was well-known and I had even won awards for some of the articles I had written. I traveled all the time. It was… it was freakin' _awesome_."

"What happened?" Arnold questioned with worry at the knowledge that what I would say next would inevitably bother him.

Staring out ahead of me into the night, I casually said, "I was doing some piece on underwater animals or something, and I got caught in a current. The water took me away and-and I drowned."

"You _died_?" He exclaimed in horror.

"Oh, yeah, I always end up dying or disappearing in _some_ fashion, but…" my voice trailed off as my mind wandered.

A solid minute of silence passed as Arnold allowed me the time I apparently needed with my thoughts. Finally, he let out a breath and said, "I guess I can see why you're always waking up the way you are," he mused while turning his head to look over at me once again. "I'd be pretty freaked out too if I died every night in my dreams."

"The dying isn't what the dreams are about, Arnold," I told him immediately. "It isn't the death part that freaks me out. It's what comes _after_ that."

"But people _never_ die in their dreams," Arnold replied with insistence. "…don't they?"

"Well, I sure do," I confirmed while reaching a hand up to rub at the bridge of my nose. "And every single time, I end up watching the world move on at my death without a single moment of acknowledgement."

"How so?" He pressed as my mind filled itself with memories of tonight's dream in a flurry of imaginary images.

"Tonight, as I struggled in the water," I began with hesitation, "my other coworkers watched me struggle. They called me _weak_ , as if that insult would make me fight harder to save myself or something." I shook my head in frustration at the events of my latest nightmare. "It was like… here I was, this great, amazing writer who had done all these brave, cool things. They didn't care, though. They treated me like I didn't matter… like I wasn't just another human being _struggling_ in front of them."

"Wow." It was all Arnold could manage, and I went on without the cue of his urging.

"And once it was all over, after I was done thrashing and trying to scream for help… I watched from above as nobody seemed even remotely phased by my passing." I frowned in the darkness while looking down to my lap where I fidgeted with my fingers despite my inability to see them.

"Helga…" Arnold tried to say in a calming voice, but my body remained tense as I went forward with recollecting the dream that I couldn't seem to shake this time around.

"It all felt so…so _real_ ," I expressed while picking at the cuticle of one of my nailbeds. "Like they were _right there_. Like I didn't matter again. Like I _never_ seem to matter."

"You matter," he firmly stated while finding my hand with his own to stop me from my nervous picking. "Helga, you matter to _me_ and to tons of other people. You know that, right?"

"I guess," I said without inflection, my thoughts worlds away. "It's just that every time I wake up, I feel like I did a year ago. It's like I'm right back to living my life in the shadows of everyone's successes. Like I'm nothing and I'm unimportant and—"

"And you don't have me," Arnold finished for me in a hushed and defeated tone.

"Hey," I stopped him from adding anything else and took his one hand into both of mine. "Don't act like that, okay? I'm not blaming you for _anything_ here. This isn't your fault."

"I know that," he replied, though his voice still sounded sad. "Sometimes I feel like I let you down, though. I knew that you needed me, and I didn't want to, but I-I let you down."

"You _never_ let me down, Arnold," I asserted myself while managing a cool and collected tone. "You want to know why?"

His football-headed silhouette turned to look in my direction. "Why?"

"Because even though I keep having these dumb nightmares for some reason," I started to explain before a small smile began to spread across my lips, "I wake up and when I do… you're right there. I can look over and see that you're here with me. That we're… we're _together_."

"We are." It was a definitive statement that Icouldn't begin to argue with, even if I had wanted to. "And as long as I'm here, no one can hurt you. Even if you struggle in your sleep, you can take comfort that I'm right beside you and I'll never leave. I won't go anywhere, so long as you want me here."

"I do," I said earnestly. "I'll _always_ want you here, Arnold. In my dreams… I always get everything that I want. But… well, I never get _you._ You're never there and…and maybe that's why everything goes so wrong. Because all that I ever wanted… is _you_."

"Helga…" Arnold spoke my name before pulling me into him and holding me there snugly. "If I could give you my eyes—If I could make you see yourself in the way that _I_ see you… you'd never wonder for another second about your worth. You would never wonder about that life in your nightmares. You wouldn't need to. That dream version of yourself and all of those careless people your mind makes up night after night… they don't deserve you or your worry."

I wondered about my fears, that inane insecurity within me that constantly worried about whether or not I was cared about and the legacy I may one day leave behind. From the comfort of Arnold's arms, I pondered the words he had said so sweetly to me mere moments ago. His words blended with that of the imaginary dialogue that had taken place from the confines of my dreams. Soon, my brain was filled with his words and theirs—the words of my demons that haunted me with every passing night.

The sentiments from both my nighttime hallucinations and Arnold's words mixed with one another so well, that as I drifted back to an empty slumber, my final thoughts resounded through my mind while I slept soundly in Arnold's embrace.

_If I knew for certain that Arnold and I would end up together in the end, would I still be so afraid of losing him? Would I still be so fearful that he might leave me?_

_And if_ he _knew the kind of impact that our troubles from the past would have on me right now in the future, would he do things differently? What would he do instead?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's a wrap on Shortaki Week 2020!  
> Y'all, I had such a fun time with the prompts this year—I really tried to push myself at interpreting everything in a fashion that people weren't expecting, and I truly hope that you enjoyed what I put out this year! I sure know that I did. The content that was created for this event has been SO INSPIRING and SO GOOD. I am so thankful to be part of this fandom and to have the support and love from all of you in numerous ways. You all rock, seriously. What a talented fandom we have!
> 
> Next up, I will be working on the upcoming chapter for Helga Unbound, so keep an eye out for the update! I plan to upload the next chapter by mid-August, as I haven't had much time to work on anything besides irl work and Shortaki Week. Have no fear, though! I have big plans for that story and I do not intend to give up now! If anything, this event has really boosted my desire to continue with it.
> 
> As always, please let me know what you thought of this story—sorry if it ended on kind of a bittersweet note, but you all know that I'm a sucker for some angst and I've been pretty fluffy all week so… let me have this haha. Please review! See you soon!
> 
> xo

**Author's Note:**

> So for those of you reading 'Helga Unbound,' the proposal I have planned for that when we get there is VASTLY different than this one, but this was another Idea I had had in the past that I thought could be fun to write.
> 
> Let Shortaki Week 2020 commence!
> 
> (Please leave me a review and let me know what you think! And ALSO, for those following Helga Unbound, once Shortaki Week is through, there will be a new chapter shortly so thanks for being patient.)


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